


Countdown

by LiquidCaliban



Series: Space [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Background Sam/Maria - Freeform, F/M, Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Spoilers, Team as Family, fugitive Avengers, romanogers - Freeform, safe house
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2019-05-02 18:49:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 57,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14551113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiquidCaliban/pseuds/LiquidCaliban
Summary: How the band got back together prior to the movie. Spoilers for Infinity War. Longer summary inside.





	1. T-minus 548 Days

**Author's Note:**

> I'm looking at this as a chapter fic that covers the period between CW and IW when Natasha finds Steve, Sam and Wanda and they go back to hero-ing on the low low. I'm planning a second fic from the end of IW onward following this one. Romanogers, of course. I don't own the characters or the movies or the general concept of war.

Steve wasn’t surprised to see the figure lounging in the garden outside their Dutch safe house when he returned from his run ahead of Sam. If anything, he was shocked that it had taken this long for Natasha to track them down. Her hair was blonde and shorter than it had been the last time he’d seen her, but the nonchalant confidence was a dead giveaway.

She didn’t get up from her seat on the small bench as she fixed him with a half-smile. “Don’t give me that look.”

“What look?” he asked as he sat beside her, slightly self-conscious about the sweat plastering his shirt to his body and dripping down his face.

“The one that says you’re not surprised to see me.”

“Well…I’m a little surprised. I haven’t even heard from you in six months.”

“Sorry about that. I had to make sure Laura and the kids were okay until Clint made it home.”

“Home?” Clint had been cagey about where he was headed when they’d parted ways after the breakout from the Raft, but Steve doubted he’d return to a place Tony Stark knew about.

“Not the home you visited,” Natasha confirmed. “People like us have more than one place we can call home. He was never going to last on house arrest.”

“Yeah, but with kids…”

“They’re adaptable. Don’t worry about the Bartons. Or Lang. I heard he’s fine.”

“Great.”

She was quiet for a moment, staring into brightening sky as the sun peeked over the trees. She eventually murmured, “I’m sorry, Steve.”

“For bringing news?”

“For taking so long to get here. After Clint’s family got settled I camped out at Maria’s for a while to get my head together. Did a few jobs that came up. I finally decided I should get in touch with you.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re here.” In spite of the change in color, he noticed that her hair still smelled the same when she leaned into him. He inhaled deeply before an odd thought crossed his mind. “Wait, did you say you were staying with Maria Hill?”

“What? She’s my friend and she offered her spare bedroom.”

“Really?”

“Really. It was actually pretty good, although I discovered she has much stronger opinions about the Gilmore Girls than I do. She says hi, by the way.” After a pause she added, “So does Nick.”

That was the reddest flag she could have raised. “What have you _really_ been up to?”

After an interminable pause, she finally said, “Breaking up arms dealing rings, handling mob enforcers, safeguarding the international community. The usual.” She leveled a serious gaze at him. “Are you bored here, Steve?”

“Um…” He glanced around the garden. His carefully sculpted and maintained hedgerow of unicorns seemed to preclude any denials. “We manage to fill the days.”

“Yeah, I was bored too.” She cocked her head as she looked at him. “How would you feel about joining me? Getting back into the world?”

He flashed back to a similar question Nick Fury had asked him years ago, just before he’d become an Avenger. He didn’t regret the choice he’d made then, but he wasn’t ready to be manipulated into the same choice again. “Fury sent you.”

“No. He knows I’m here, of course, but he didn’t send me.” She leaned into him a little more. “I’m here because we were a good team. I miss you. I miss working with my partner.”

“Nat…”

“If the answer is no, just say it.” Her breath was suddenly brushing his lips as she whispered, “Tell me to go. Tell me you don’t want me here.”

He didn’t hesitate as he said, “Don’t leave. I want you here. I…” He was cut off as she kissed him, her lips soft against his at first. He remembered their kiss on the escalator in DC, rushed and hard as they playacted passion as a cover. This was so unlike that; this was _real_. He found himself caressing her face, burying his hand in her hair and trying to pull her against his body. She was nothing if not eager to deepen the kiss, her fingers combing through the beard he’d been growing as their tongues made contact. She tasted like mint LifeSavers with something bitter underneath. Coffee? Regret?

He realized he should have kissed her like this so long ago.

Things were threatening to progress to a degree that would be inappropriate if they didn’t seek out some privacy when they were interrupted by a wolf whistle. “Damn, Cap! Didn’t think you…” Sam trailed off as Steve pulled away from Natasha and she turned. “Oh, hey. Nat. Not the blonde I would have expected, but…yeah.”

Steve felt blood rushing to his face, but Natasha didn’t seem surprised. Sam had made a few remarks early on about his kiss with Sharon Carter, but those had disappeared with the months in hiding. Natasha didn’t remark on his reaction, but stood and walked over to Sam. “Hey, Sam. How’ve you been?”

He shied away from the hug she offered. “You mean _after_ I got broken out of Azkaban, where you let your buddies put me? Pretty good. Y’know, barring the whole ocean Folsom experience.”

“I deserve that,” she conceded. Steve fought the urge to defend her. He’d explained the situation to Sam – how Natasha had facilitated his and Bucky’s escape before going off the grid – but there was obviously some bad blood that needed to be expunged. “I know I was wrong. I should never have signed the Accords.”

“Nope. Maybe shouldn’t have let your friends get locked up, either.”

“There was nothing I could do about that, short of getting locked up with you.”

Sam frowned. “Never heard of team solidarity?”

“Sam!” Steve intervened. There were so few friends around them now, fewer with Wanda on her frequent sabbaticals – she had stated a need for absolute freedom after the restrictive conditions imposed upon her on the Raft and had taken to disappearing for a few days every three weeks or so. Neither Steve nor Sam had wanted to challenge her on it. Steve brought himself back to the moment. “Natasha isn’t here to argue.”

“Naw, she’s here to make out with you until you’re convinced we can trust her.”

“Sam…”

Natasha interrupted Steve’s plea, “Maybe you two should take a minute to talk.” She shot him a look. “I’ll wait out here.”

Sam didn’t hesitate, dragging Steve into the house as she sank back down on the garden bench.

Once they were in the house, he immediately went off. “Dude, you’re not seriously thinking about bringing her in, right?”

“Why not?”

“Uh, because she let me and Wanda get locked up in a secret prison? Because she signed the superhero exclusion act? Because she’s probably setting us up?”

“She’s not setting us up.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“I…” Steve paused for a moment. Natasha had invoked Fury, who’d been noticeably absent during the debacle with the Accords. And he’d never been the most trustworthy man. Still, Steve repeated, “She’s not setting us up.”

Sam was entirely unmoved as he started gathering breakfast ingredients. “Super convincing, man.”

“She’s been working.” A few recent news stories shot through Steve’s head – students freed from a Nigerian warlord, a cache of arms delivered to Interpol from a Greek warehouse, a botched bombing of an Afghan school that had killed the terrorists planting it – and he remembered how good it felt knowing he’d been instrumental in such acts. He grasped Sam’s shoulder. “She wants to get us back to work, too. Tell me that’s not tempting.”

“You say that like my frittatas haven’t improved exponentially while we’ve had time to, uh, take up hobbies.” Sam began cracking eggs against a glass bowl. “Not like we owe the world anything.”

“I know that’s not why you became an Avenger.”

“So? Doesn’t mean I want to get arrested again for doin’ the right thing. You think anyone’s gonna think twice about taking us in when we turn over smuggled missiles or whatever? Besides, you and me might be keeping the world safe, but what’s Nat up to, huh?”

“She’s…” Steve sighed heavily. Sam knew Natasha well enough to take her at her word once he’d stopped venting. He attempted a joke. “If you  really want to interrogate Natasha about her motives…”

“Yeah, sure I would. Tie her down. Not even kidding.” Sam pulled a chair from the dining room table. “Tie her to this and see what she says.”

“I don’t think it’s necessary.”

“Yeah, she’ll probably hold out with just me yelling, but…” He stared Steve down for a moment before turning away to whisk the eggs. “Whatever, man. Invite her in for breakfast while I make coffee.”

“I promise you won’t regret it.” Steve bounded out of the house before Sam could reply. He’d been terrified Natasha would be gone when he returned to the garden, but she was sitting on the bench. He rejoined her. “Sam says okay.”

“Sure he did.”

“Well, he’s making frittatas, anyway. He just needs a little time.” She didn’t reply, but again leaned against him. Although the silence was comfortable, he had to fill it with an explanation about something he hoped was less fraught. “That thing Sam said about blondes… I should probably tell you that, uh, I, um, well…I kissed Sharon Carter while we were on the run. She brought us our gear and…it just sort of happened.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“You…” He had expected indifference or sarcastic congratulations; he had almost hoped for a little jealousy. He had absolutely not anticipated a shrug of disinterest. “What?”

“Maria and I bumped into Sharon in DC not long ago. She’s managing a unit back at Langley, by the way. The CIA was more impressed by how long it took to trace the gear back to her than they were annoyed by the loss of the gear, so she got promoted. We ended up out going out for drinks and she told us the whole story. She’s not totally sure about it.” She hurriedly patted his thigh. “Not you. I mean, she said it was a good kiss, but she wasn’t sure about _why_ it happened. She has a Freudian theory about you and Peggy and her. I was on my third martini by then and…”

“Is that why you kissed me earlier?” he interrupted.

“No.”

“Then why?”

She didn’t answer, but turned her face toward the sun with her eyes closed. “I smell coffee. And Sam’ll like me better when he finds out I’ve got his wingpack. Even Redwing is there.”

Steve didn’t bother to ask about his shield as intertwined his fingers with hers and led her into the house.


	2. T-minus 541 Days

It took exactly one successful mission for Sam to accept Natasha back into the fold, though she’d already been halfway there when she pulled his wingpack from the back of her vintage jeep. They’d discussed a potential operation she’d brought intel on, a terrorist cell based in Luxembourg, over his much-improved frittatas and left that very day to apprehend the group before they could blow up a train on the high speed rail line to Paris later that week. He’d even gotten to use his wingpack, landing on the roof of the barn where the men were trying to set up their explosives. He’d kicked one guy in the face when the moron had tried to flee Steve and Natasha’s ground ambush.

He had to admit, it was damn satisfying.

It had ended with minimal contact with the public, just a turnover of three angry, handcuffed idiots with a disabled bomb to a confused pair of gendarmes. They’d even got home before Wanda returned, not that they could ever be sure when she’d show up.

Now Sam sat at the table, tinkering with his wingpack to ensure it was in prime condition, as Steve and Natasha made dinner. They were chopping vegetables and marinating meat and simmering sauces. They were also constantly bumping into each other and laughing like they were…happy. Happy because they were together. It hadn’t affected them in the field, but now…

Sam focused on cleaning some nonexistent particles of dirt from Redwing’s casing. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Steve’s judgement, even if Steve did have a huge soft, mushy spot for Natasha. He had been shocked to find out they weren’t even a couple when Steve was in the hospital following the helicarrier battle in DC. Sam had gone back and forth on whether they had or hadn’t sealed the deal ever since, right up until Steve had locked lips with Sharon in Germany.

Natasha suddenly burst out laughing as Steve turned bright red after biting down on a pepper to prove it wasn’t that hot. He responded by jamming another pepper into her mouth.

Sam ignored the way she sucked on Steve’s finger before shrugging off the pepper like it wasn’t making Captain America sweat. She rubbed a dishtowel across his brow. “This is why I never take you for Indian food.”

“I’m okay with spicy. It’s just the heat without flavor!”

“The heat is part of the flavor! Sam, back me up,” she cried as Steve wrapped his arms around her from behind and lifted her off the floor.

Sam had to laugh. “Man, don’t you remember how he reacted when I made my Mom’s gumbo recipe back at HQ? And that’s got nothin’ on her jambalaya.”

“Oh, that was so good. The gumbo, I mean, although I wouldn’t say no if you make jambalaya. Think you could do it here?”

Sam was reminded how much he’d enjoyed living at HQ. It had been like the service, living in close quarters with colleagues he trusted with his life, but far more luxurious and less restrictive. The divide that had placed half of those people on the opposite side still yawned, even if Natasha was ‘back.’ It had been rough seeing her standing across the tarmac with Vision and Rhodey – even more so, since he’d known and trusted her longer. Ever since they’d met, Sam had gotten used to being on the same team as Natasha while thanking God that he didn’t have to fight against her. He hadn’t actually had to go toe to toe with her. He realized how lucky that was as she looked at him expectantly. He smiled. “Yeah, I might be able to rustle up the ingredients at the local market. I can’t make any promises, though. From what I’ve seen so far, these Dutch folks aren’t very adventurous with…”

He was interrupted by a shout from near the front door. “What is she doing here?” Before either he or Steve could explain, Natasha’s arms were pinned to her body by tendrils of wispy red magic shooting from Wanda’s fingertips. “She betrayed us.”

Sam looked to Steve, but he seemed too focused on Natasha, trying to reach her through the ephemeral bonds. It looked like he would have to step in. He stood slowly, hands up in a non-aggressive manner as he said, “Wanda, remember how Steve told us what Natasha did to help him escape. She’s on our side. She’s not…”

Wanda pushed past him as if she didn’t even see him, approaching Natasha will all the repressed anger of caged tiger. “They made me wear a straitjacket. They put me in a shock collar!”

“I’m sorry,” Natasha gasped as a red tendril wrapped around her throat. “I didn’t know.”

“That is your excuse? You didn’t know?”

“Wanda, stop!” Steve cried, stepping between the two women. Wanda’s eyes flashed red for a moment before she lowered her hands, releasing Natasha. She made no move to flee, in spite of the fact that Wanda’s fingers were still twitching rapidly, hands glowing. Steve continued, “Nat got here while you were gone. We prevented an attack on a train. We’re getting back out there. You don’t have to join us, that’s okay. You can keep doing what’s best for you. For me and Sam, though…”

“We kinda like the saving people thing,” Sam finished. He realized he’d already made the decision to keep up the undercover work, but it was good to say it out loud. He needed to be out in the world, even if the world would never know or accept that he was there.

The tension in the house abruptly dropped when Wanda ceased to produce visible magic. “I will not stay in the same house with a traitor.”

“Wanda…” Steve began.

“Not a problem,” Natasha interrupted. “I’ll find a place to stay.”

“Nat, you don’t have to…”

“It’s fine, Steve. This is Wanda’s home, not mine. She should be comfortable here.” She left the house without another word.

Steve looked around wordlessly at the simmering pots and pans before saying, “I’ll be right back,” and taking off after her into the sunset.

Sam was left in the kitchen with Wanda, who seemed bewildered by the turn of events. “Did I just…?”

“Kick Black Widow out? Yeah.” He pulled out a chair and maneuvered her into it by her shoulders. “For the record, we did run a successful op while you were gone. It was good for us.”

She was looking toward the door, which Steve had left hanging open. His and Natasha’s arguing voices were barely audible. “He trusts her too easily because of how he feels about her.”

“Mmm hm.” Rather than reacting to the fact that he wasn’t the only one to recognize the situation, Sam set the kettle to boil for a cup of tea. Wanda always felt better after a cup of tea. “So, is this gonna be a thing where you just have to get used to it?”

“Perhaps. I believe so.”

“’kay.” He stirred one of the pots where a sauce was thickening. “How long do you have to cook quail?”

“Sam…”

A motor started in the driveway, gravel bouncing off their own SUV as the jeep peeled out. Steve was back in the kitchen a moment later. “Wanda…” The wild quality suddenly disappeared from his eyes as his voice softened. “I’m sorry.”

Sam raised an eyebrow, but Wanda rushed Steve to wrap him in a hug. “I just…I was not expecting to see Natasha and I need time to forgive and…”

“Shh,” Steve murmured, stroking her hair. “She knows. She won’t be back until you say it’s okay.”

“I am not trying to hurt you, Steve.”

“You’re not. Nat’ll be back. If you let her.”

Sam shook his head with a half-smile as he turned back to the whistling kettle on the stove. The tag from a hotel key was hanging out of Steve’s front pocket.


	3. T-minus 529 Days

Wanda was torn between continuing to punish Natasha for her betrayal and forgiving her because she wasn’t truly responsible for what Wanda had suffered. Truthfully, she wanted to settle things between herself and Natasha, but her unexpected appearance had come as an opportune distraction. Wanda wasn’t yet ready to talk about her clandestine meetings with Vision.

For her part, Natasha was staying away, as promised. Steve was regularly visiting her at the small cottage she’d rented in the neighboring town, though he’d yet to stay the night as Sam continued to insinuate he should. She had apparently established herself at the site before making contact, like a good spy. He had bought a used Vespa (which he looked absolutely ridiculous riding) so he wouldn’t have to monopolize their one car or run all the way there every time he wanted to see Natasha. He probably would run there and back daily, if that’s what it took to see her. Wanda had noticed the connection between Steve and Natasha early on in her tenure as an Avenger. They fit together in ways not even they realized. On the rare occasions Wanda had allowed her magic free rein, she’d always been impressed and even intimidated by the connection between the two. She knew that if she tried to come between them, she would be overwhelmed.

She wouldn’t force Steve to choose between her and Natasha. They deserved a little happiness, especially given that she had been actively seeking her own. Vision had found a way to make himself appear more human, but she wouldn’t have cared if he remained purple and green. Their connection was so deep and profound; she told herself every day that it wasn’t related to their shared bond with the mind stone. It was personal and real and…

She couldn’t deny Steve and Natasha that kind of relationship.

It had already been over a week and it was unfair to drag it out anymore. It was hard enough now, with him sulking around the house and Sam shooting her knowing glances.

Decided, she stood from the garden bench where she had been enjoying the sunlight and warm breeze, walking down the path back to the house as the grass tickled her bare feet. She grabbed a pair of sandals just inside the door and the keys from the hook. She called out to Sam, who was teaching himself to carve radish roses from an old cookbook propped on the dining table, “I’m going to the market. Do you need anything?”

“Nah, I got enough radishes.” He looked up from the small reddish sphere in his hand. “You want company?”

“I think I can manage buying tampons on my own.”

“Okay! You have fun with that, now.”

She smiled and waved as she left the house. She had been counting on Sam’s response, feeding him the line to discourage him from tagging along. The twenty minute drive gave her time to think, as if she hadn’t been considering what she was going to say to Natasha for the past week. She wanted to say that she understood Natasha’s choices and didn’t blame her for the results. She wanted to say that Natasha should give up her rental and come to live at the safe house. She wanted to have her reliable friend back.

She had no idea if she’d be able to articulate these things when she actually saw Natasha, considering she’d zapped the other woman with a magical lasso during their last encounter.

There was no space in the short driveway of the cottage for Wanda to park, so she found a space in town, a quick walk away. On a whim, she bought a small bouquet of tulips from a shop before making her way back to the cottage.

She was walking toward the front door when she heard voices. Stopping at an open window, she peered through the curtains. It was a bedroom. More importantly, it was a bedroom where Steve and Natasha were wrapped in an intimate embrace beneath a light sheet in the bed against the opposite wall. She laughed, a soft, lilting sound as he pressed his lips to her throat, sucking at the skin there. “Don’t you dare give me a hickey. I’m pretty sure the neighbor woman already thinks I’m your mistress or something.”

“You’re definitely _something_ ,” he replied, maintaining his position. “My best girl. Or do people just say girlfriend now?”

“I don’t remember agreeing to that.” She caught his mouth in a long kiss, her hand coming up to cup his chin. Her nails combed through his beard as she cooed, “Of course, if you asked, I’d probably say yes.”

 “Probably?”

“Yeah, but I don’t hear you asking.” She laughed again as he blew a raspberry on her chest. “Steve…”

He suddenly pulled back and looked at her seriously. “So, will you be my girlfriend?”

“You are so…” she trailed off to peck his lips. “Yeah. I will. So, I guess you’re officially my boyfriend.” They shared another long kiss before she added, “Labels are weird. You’re hardly a boy.”

“Nope. I’m an elderly man. A centenarian, in fact. That being the case, don’t suppose you’ll agree to humor an old man and come home with me.”

She turned away from him, though she still allowed him to spoon her. “Stop that.”

“Nat, I just…” He pressed his lips to her shoulder. “Maybe if you come back to the house with me to pick something up, Wanda will see you and feel like she should…”

“No!” she cut him off. “It has to be her decision. If she invites me over, fine, but I’m not just going to force myself on her. She’s been through enough. I won’t traumatize her further.”

“You won’t!”

“Let _her_ make that call.”

Steve dipped his head to kiss Natasha’s shoulder again. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. We have time.”

“You can’t be sure of that.”

“Well, we have right now.” She suddenly turned and pushed him onto his back, the sheet falling away as she straddled him, exposing them both. “What are you gonna do about it?”

They were both absolutely beautiful physical specimens.

Wanda ducked away from the window, deciding that she was going to get a coffee at the café near where she’d parked. Her resolution to speak with Natasha was put off for an hour as she lingered over her latte and banket. She had developed a fondness for the almond pastry while living in Holland; they reminded her of her mother’s special kolache. The café staff had started giving her the stink eye by the time she decided she had given the amorous couple enough time to conclude their activities.

She walked back to the cottage, not stopping at the bedroom window this time, but walking directly to the front door.

A series of scrambling sounds followed her knocking. Eventually, Natasha opened the door, wearing a robe. She didn’t seem surprised as she said, “Wanda. Hi.”

“Natasha. May I come in?”

The other woman didn’t reply, but waved her into the small space.

“Steve is here.” Wanda was careful not to make it a question as she drifted toward a small sofa. She didn’t want to make her earlier observations obvious, but the little scooter was clearly leaning against the jeep in the driveway. “He…he will not interfere?”

“Yeah. I mean, no. He won’t.” Natasha was quiet as she filled a kettle and set it on the stovetop. “He’ll leave in a minute. He keeps telling me that everything’ll be all right.”

“He does not lie.”

“I know. But he also thinks the best of people.” Natasha eyed her warily. “He wants us to be friends.”

“You do not think this is possible?”

“You tell me. I fucked up and I admit it. I can’t make up for what happened to you.”

“It was…” Wanda closed her eyes and flashed back to her cell, confined physically and mentally and magically. Every impulse had been restrained. She tried to exchange that feeling for the one she’d gotten when she’d unintentionally spied on Steve and Natasha earlier. “I know you would not have willingly put me in that situation.”

“I couldn’t have stopped it. Even if I’d intervened…it wouldn’t have mattered.” Natasha pulled mugs from the cupboards and fussily arranged milk and sugar on a tray. “I meant it when I said I didn’t know.”

“I know.” Wanda tried to swallow all of her anger, pain and desire for retaliation, but she was unsuccessful. “You didn’t help Steve to free us.”

“I sent him the coordinates. I wasn’t there because I was protecting Clint’s family.”

Wanda looked down at the floor. The only innocents involved in this whole mess where the children – Clint’s and Scott’s. She couldn’t possibly hold Nathaniel _Pietro_ ’s safety as a marker. “Clint is safe with them?”

“Safe and sound. Lang is with his daughter, too.” Natasha poured the boiling water into the teapot. “No one will get to either of them.”

“Good. That’s good.” Wanda’s head shot up as Steve suddenly appeared, clothes askew and hair disheveled.

“Wanda!” His eyes remained wide as they locked on Wanda, but he relaxed as Natasha, still in just her robe, walked in with the tea tray. “Um…”

“We’re just going to have a cup of tea, Steve,” she replied, cocking her head to indicate the two mugs on the tray. “We’ll talk later, okay?”

He hesitated for a moment before he pulled an old Nokia brick from his pocket; the older the phone the harder it was to track. “Yeah, call me.”

Only the sounds of tea being poured were audible until Steve’s Vespa kicked in and puttered away. Wanda carefully added cream and sugar to her cup. “He looks a bit silly on the scooter.”

“Oh, you noticed how he has to hunch over and pretend he’s a skinny millennial who doesn’t have three foot wide shoulders when he rides it?”

They shared a laugh that felt almost natural. Wanda took a sip of tea and recognized the blend with some surprise. “This is from Lithuania.”

“It’s nice.” Natasha shrugged as she sipped from her own mug. “I know it isn’t Sokovian, but…”

“You made an effort. I appreciate that.” Wanda focused on her tea. She inhaled the steam as it swept through her memories. It tasted like coming home from school and telling her mother about math lessons, like her father pretending he didn’t like the family cat, like Pietro running through the apartment with news of his latest soccer match… “I do not wish to come between you and Steve.”

“You aren’t. Steve can come here whenever he wants.”

“Still…”

Natasha set her mug down on the tray. “My relationship with Steve is irrelevant.”

“It is…”

Natasha held up a hand to silence Wanda. “How do _you_ feel?”

“I…” She didn’t want to hurt Natasha. She didn’t want to inflict suffering on her or Steve. She wanted to bring the team back together. If only she could. “It is not easy.”

“Never is.” Natasha suddenly stood up, spreading her arms. “Do whatever you need to do to make things right.”

Although she was clearly anticipating an attack, Natasha still tensed up as Wanda wrapped her in tight hug. “I do not want us to fight. I want the team back. I want our family back.”

Natasha hesitated for a moment before returning Wanda’s hug. “I won’t let you down again.”

“You never did,” Wanda whispered back.

“If it’s not too much to hear, Pietro may be gone, but you’ve still got big brothers looking after you.”

“I know.” Wanda didn’t have to acknowledge that she had a sister now as well.


	4. T-minus 523 Days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note explicit sexy-times in the first section, so if you don't want to read Romanogers knockin' da boots, skip to the break.

Natasha fisted her hands in the sheets and let out a keening moan as Steve added a third finger to the two he was already working inside her while he lapped and sucked at her clit even harder. This was the first chance they’d had the be alone in the house since she’d settled things with Wanda and relocated, so she planned to take full advantage of the opportunity to demonstrate to Steve how much she appreciated his mouth. Even his beard tickled in ways that had her clenching her thighs around his head. “Steve…oh. God, Steve!”

He huffed out a laugh that went straight to her core. “Come on, Nat. Really let it out.”

A long swipe of his tongue sent a shudder through her entire body just before he pursed his lips around her clit and pulled her over the edge. She didn’t force herself to stay quiet, crying out a string of nonsense syllables as her orgasm pulsed through her body. She let the sensation overwhelm her, knowing he would be there to work her through it.

So good. So, so good. Almost _too_ good. Shit, too much.

She gently pushed his head away as she looked down at him between her still-trembling thighs. He’d surprised her a week ago on his third visit to her cottage by going down on her almost immediately after she’d suggested they get a little more physical. “God, Steve. Do I even want to ask how you learned to do that?”

“Uhh…” He gave her a shy grin, though his innocence was tempered by the fact that his beard was wet as he rested his chin on her mons. “Well…some of the girls on the USO tour were…friendly. _Real_ friendly.”

She raised her eyebrows at the revelation. She’d never really bought into the team’s teasing about Steve being a virgin, but she hadn’t expected he’d maintained a harem. “So the ‘O’ in USO stood for orgy?”

“There, uh, well, there was the occasional ménage à trois, but…” He was now starting to get red in the cheeks. “They were nice girls. Just a little lonely and I…I always gave as good as I got.”

“Why does that not surprise me?” She hooked her fingers under his jaw and encouraged him to move up her body. She could feel the throb of his hard cock against her leg. As he paused to lave attention on her breasts, she asked, “So, was that your first experience with real friendly girls?”

“Nat…”

“You don’t have to tell me. I don’t really want to discuss my own past experience, unless you feel like being disgusted.”

“You could never disgust me.” He settled on top of her, pressing a gentle kiss to her lips, her own musk wafting off his damp beard. “’Sides, it’s not like you got to make a choice about it, like I did.”

She swallowed hard. “Did you love her?”

“Nah. She was nice and she was my neighbor. Mary McTeague. I was still a skinny little nineteen year old, but she still wanted… I liked her, but it wasn’t love.” He pushed his hips forward, teasing her with his hard length. “For the record, I’ve never made love to anyone before you.”

She kissed him to avoid responding. Of course Steve would make the distinction between just sex and… She kissed him harder, her tongue forcing his aside as she pushed into his mouth. She wasn’t ready to talk about love. Not yet. So what if she’d just moved in with him and made a commitment and…and… She raked her nails down his back as she tugged his beard between her teeth. Reaching his ear, she nipped the lobe before roughly whispering, “Fuck me.”

To her surprise, he pushed her hand away gently when she tried to guide him inside her. “What’d I just tell you?”

“Steve…” She met his burning blue eyes and couldn’t deny it. “Make love to me.”

“Always,” he whispered back, pushing into her slowly, prolonging the initial stretch that nearly caught her off-guard every time. “Oh, Natasha.”

“Mmm.” She kissed him greedily as he began a slow, torturous rhythm that had her body singing. “Steve…”

He sped up slightly in response to the press of her hips against him. Their sweat-slick skin slid together as they moved, creating even more heat between them. She was going to burn up, she was sure of it. The fire was building low in her belly and it would consume her if she didn’t hold it in a little longer. “Steve…”

He grunted her name as he began to thrust harder, faster. She rocked her hips up to meet him, digging her fingers into his iron triceps. How was it so easy to get here over and over with him? A tremor suddenly wracked her body from head to toe and she wrapped her legs around his waist to spread herself even further to him. “You…Nat…you’re so beautiful.”

“Steve…”

“I can’t hold on. Please.”

She redoubled her own chase at her release, having learned quickly that he was disappointed if he couldn’t make her come this way. She suspected he’d be insulted if she faked it, not that… He suddenly grabbed her hips to hold her steady so he could put all his power behind his thrusts. “Oh…God…Steve!”

She let her eyes roll back as the heat flooding through her failed to destroy anything but her desire to be anywhere but underneath Steve. Her orgasm rolled through her, waves of pleasure igniting every nerve he touched, inside and out. She felt another rush of heat as his hips stuttered to a stop and he ceased to move inside her with a deep groan. He became deadweight for a moment, pinning her to the bed as the world’s most willing captive. She carded her fingers through his hair, stroking his scalp as he came back to himself with a series of heavy pants. Raising his head seemed to take a supreme effort. His eyes were lidded with satisfaction as he asked, “Should I…?”

“Stay. Just for a minute.”

He touched his forehead to hers. “That was amazing.”

“It was.” She couldn’t help but play with his beard when he was right there. She decided to give it a try. “I…I’ve never felt this way.”

“Me neither. Like I said…”

“Yeah. Yes. I mean, for me too. It’s…yeah.”

She almost squeezed out the words when he just smiled and kissed her softly before rolling off of her. Instead, she stayed quiet and tucked into his embrace for a little nap. It had to be part of his natural perfection that he knew when to push hard and when to be gentle.

* * *

Natasha was dozing lightly beside Steve later when the bedroom door slammed against the wall to reveal Sam holding a glass jar. “You gotta try this jam I found.”

“Sam?” Steve questioned, as Natasha tucked her Glock back under her pillow. “Did you  really say jam?”

“Wanda and I were in the market and there was this lady with a stall sellin’ homemade jam and I tasted this one and…” he paused, as if just noticing what he’d walked into in his excitement. “Okay, I’ve probably got a different happy-time scale workin’ for me at the moment, but, come on!” He pulled a cloth from the jar after unscrewing the lid. “Just smell it, assuming you can smell anything over the sex funk in here. Wait, I’ll open the window.”

Natasha had to laugh as Steve was left holding the jam jar with a confused look and disheveled hair. She tousled it further before taking the jar from him. It was a pleasant smell. “So, blackberry, cherry…” She took another sniff, but Sam had a point about the current scent in the room.

Sam was standing at the now open window, waving fresh air in. “It’s got, like, six berries in there. The lady pointed me toward her neighbor that makes this super creamy goat-brie, so I’m making a baked brie appetizer with this jam in a puff pastry tonight.” He strutted across the room to reclaim his jam. “I begin serving at 6:30, so y’all better have some pants on by then.” The door closed with a firm click behind him.

Steve still had the same bewilderment he’d been wearing through the last few minutes. “Did…did I just hallucinate Sam and a jelly jar?”

“He said it was jam. I’m sure there’s a difference he’ll quote at us from Julia Child as we eat.”

“I don’t know whether to be happy or annoyed that the person who lived here before left all their cookbooks behind.”

She patted his sculpted stomach. “Lucky you don’t have to worry about all the rich foods he’s learning to make. I think I’m gonna have to start running with you.”

“But you already…”

“I mean keeping up with you, not running along the same route as you lap me twice.”

He chuckled. “I like to slow down when I’m coming up behind you and enjoy the view.”

“Dirty old man,” she murmured, pecking his cheek.

She was about to add some other caresses when Sam opened the door again. “Hey, not about jam from heaven this time, but our favorite grumpy pirate is on TV.”

“Nick?” She stretched her arms over her head. “Record it.”

“Yeah, not what I meant. Fury apparently hacked our WiFi and now he won’t let me watch _Chopped_ until he talks to you.”

“I’ll be down in a minute.”

Steve grabbed her arm to stop her from getting out of bed as Sam closed the door. “I thought you said we weren’t going to be working for Fury.”

“We’re not. But he’s still a good intel source. He’ll give us the rundown and we’ll decide whether we want to pursue it.”

He didn’t look convinced, but quickly dressed and followed her downstairs. Fury grinned as they stepped in front of the large flat screen. “’Bout damn time, Romanoff. How’s your Turkish?” She grasped Steve's hand in a position she hoped was out of frame as Nick started talking about a human trafficking ring based in Istanbul.

She didn’t need Steve gripping her fingers tighter and tighter or Sam putting his baked brie ingredients back into the refrigerator to know they were taking this one.


	5. T-minus 502 Days

Steve tried to stop himself from pacing in the small command center that Natasha had set up less than a block from the compound housing not only the headquarters of an international human trafficking ring, but reportedly over thirty women and children the traffickers were about to send to brothels in Western Europe. Just the thought made his blood boil. He attributed her calm to the fact that she had been on the ground in Istanbul a week longer than he and Sam had, doing first-hand recon and making contacts with local resources.

Well, that and classic Black Widow compartmentalization. She was also entirely unamused by his barely repressed energy. “Maybe take a knee or something?”

“I can’t…”

She cut him off, “Do anything until Mustafa sends the signal? Yeah, I know.” Mustafa was their local liaison to MİT and Interpol, who was going to alert them no more than twenty minutes before his own strike force was ready to hit the compound. The plan was to neutralize the biggest threats and secure the intelligence about the organization’s connections before there was time for anyone on the inside to react. Mustafa’s team would only respond when the gunfire began, in the interest of public safety. Steve thought it was odd that they’d even be ready to react when this was technically a surprise operation on all sides, but official government agencies still had to operate under the aegis of the law, while the rogue Avengers had only to do what was right. He didn’t like that the two didn’t line up, but he supposed there was never a time that they really had.

He tapped his earbud to connect with Sam, soaring high overhead to ensure nothing they’d observed about the security in the compound had changed. “Sam, copy?”

“I’m here. Still nothing goin’ on from up here. Me and Redwing are getting’ bored.”

“Stand by.” He turned back to Natasha. “Sam says…”

“I know, Steve. We’re on the same channel.”

“Right.” He took a deep breath. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. You didn’t have time to think before the last mission, but this one…”

He flashed back to the two weeks he’d spent here, mostly in this room, listening to bugs she’d placed and analyzing patterns she’d observed. He hadn’t yet decided if it were better being here and doing what felt like nothing or being back at the safe house in the Netherlands and definitely doing nothing while Natasha did the spy legwork in…

No, it was definitely better being with her. According to Sam and Wanda, he’d been nearly insufferable during the week she’d been performing advanced recon after getting the details about the situation from Fury. Steve and Sam had sprinted to the hidden quinjet the moment they’d gotten the ‘go’ signal from Natasha, but Wanda had stayed behind with the twin excuses that she should keep the house safe and had no appropriate wardrobe for a mission. No one had questioned her decision.

Steve knew for a fact that Natasha had managed to smuggle Wanda’s red leather jacket out of wherever it had been stored. He hadn’t taken it from the trunk in their closet to try and convince her to come.

He was roused from his ruminations as the pager on the desk beeped. Even he knew that nobody used pagers anymore, but he couldn’t ignore the signal. Natasha stood, quickly securing her bites and guns. “We’re up.”

“Okay.” He glanced down at his blacked-out Captain America suit for only a moment before following her out the door.

The next few minutes passed in a whirl of dodged bullets and bypassed security protocols. Sam whooped a lot as he took out heavily-armed security goons patrolling the perimeter wall. Steve felt his blood pumping in a way he’d missed during their months of inactivity as he leveled yet another guard with a well-placed strike. He kicked in the door the man had been defending, but immediately realized his mistake. He did his best to appear non-threatening to the room of frightened people chained to heavy bolts on the floor. He wished he’d learned a few words in Turkish – or whatever language the people spoke – as he tried his best to reassure them before being distracted by the sound of gunfire in the central building of the compound, where he knew Natasha was. Sam was in his ear saying that backup had just arrived and it was therefore time to make themselves scarce, but Steve continued his sprint toward the three-story building.

He was just about to barrel through the front door when something landed on top of him, knocking him to the ground. Before he could retaliate, Natasha was offering a him a hand. He took it gingerly. “You couldn’t have given me a heads up?”

“I wasn’t _aiming_ for you. In fact, according to the plan, you should be headed over the wall right about now, not preventing me from sticking the landing.”

“That…” He took off running after her in the direction of their exit. “I was just making sure you were okay.”

“I know. But you could have just called a headcheck over comms.”

“Yeah, because you would have told me about this.” His hand hovered over a ragged tear on the side of her catsuit. He didn’t want to touch the bloody wound there and cause her pain. “You okay?”

“Just a scratch.”

“Nat…”

“I got grazed by a bullet, but I’m fine.”

He forced himself not to express his indignation, though he was more careful than he would have been if she were unscathed when he boosted her to the top of the wall. They were jogging back to their command center to clean up before he mentioned her injury again. “You said it was a bullet graze?”

“Uh-huh. Had ‘em before, will again. No big deal.”

“That’s…” He forced his voice from the strange squeak he’d just emitted back to its normal pitch. “That’s a little worrying.”

She shrugged. “Comes with the job.”

“But…”

“You’re not gonna win this argument, Steve, so just let it go.”

He decided to do just that, right up until she stripped out of the top portion of her catsuit so he could dress the wound when Sam was already piloting the quinjet toward home. “Nat, this is…”

“It looks worse than it is.”

“Can’t you wear some body armor or something?”

“Too restrictive.”

Something about T’Challa’s suit looking pretty flexible in spite of being bulletproof died on his tongue as she winced in response to the disinfectant he was using to gently cleanse her injury. “Sorry. I just…we don’t have the same access to medical care that we used to and…I don’t want you getting hurt worse than I can patch up after the mission, Natasha.”

She sucked in another breath as he finished wiping blood away. “Point taken. I’ll look into it.”

He took the concession as a win, being extra-careful as he used a series of butterfly bandages to close her wound before taping gauze around it.

* * *

The trip back was uneventful, but Steve had barely parked the jeep in the driveway outside the house when Wanda was running at them, trying not the scream, “It’s on TV!”

“What?” he asked, alarmed at the thought that their landing in the wooded area outside town had been noticed.

“Come inside!” She’d managed to hug each of them in turn (even Natasha) before letting them through the front door, but still successfully herded them into the living room. Steve sank onto the couch beside Natasha before looking toward the wall-mounted television when Wanda finally let out her excitement, “That was you guys, wasn’t it?”

On screen, a BBC reporter was standing outside the gate of the very compound they’d raided just hours before, flashing lights and uniformed personnel swarming through it now. “…by local forces in conjunction with international authorities. More than thirty Syrian refugees were found imprisoned inside, victims not only of the violent civil war in their country, but unscrupulous human traffickers willing to trade on their suffering. This operation represents a resounding blow to those exploiting the misery of some of the most vulnerable…”

The reporter’s high-minded monologue was interrupted by a woman behind him shouting, earning cheers from the crowd with her and causing Natasha to chuckle and nudge his ribs. “Looks like you made an impression, Golden Boy.”

Steve raised an eyebrow, but she didn’t clarify, turning her attention back to the news. The reporter had turned to indicate the still-shouting woman. “It appears that some of the people imprisoned are being taken to receive medical attention, though it’s difficult to see any obvious injuries. Of course, with what they have been through, the invisible injuries may be of more concern. In Istanbul, this is Marcus Collins.”

The shot was replaced by woman sitting in a sleek studio. “Thank you, Marcus. Turning our attention now to…”

Wanda was sitting on the arm of the couch beside him, leaning forward with her chin propped in her hands and eyes still on the television. “You rescued those people.”

Steve flashed back to the room he’d only glimpsed before running off to check on Natasha. “Well…not directly.”

“Yes, you did.” She shook her head. “I should have been there to help.”

“You have to do what’s right for you,” Natasha countered. “You shouldn’t be putting yourself in a position to get hit if you aren’t ready.” She glanced at Steve significantly. “We don’t think less of you.”

“Still…” Wanda sighed heavily. “I…I am going to Amsterdam for a few days, I think.”

“Stay safe,” Natasha replied with a nod. Steve exchanged a surprised look with Sam; Wanda had never shared her destination before taking off before.

Once she’d wandered off upstairs, Sam poked Steve in the thigh. “What was _that_ about?”

“I asked her not to just disappear completely, especially if we’re going to be working.” Natasha stood from the couch with a slight wince. “She hasn’t been intentionally trying to worry you guys, but she hadn’t really considered how you felt about her Houdini-ing you every few weeks. She’s going to tell us the city she plans to be in from now on.”

“Oh. Okay.” Sam looked befuddled by the idea that they could have just talked to Wanda about their concerns, but just walked to the kitchen sink and started washing his hands. “I’m not promising any miracles, but if Wanda’s been to the market lately, I think I can throw together a little pasta primavera with some…” He opened the refrigerator. “Yeah, I can do some lemon-grilled chicken breasts for protein!”

“Great, Sam. We have time for a shower?”

Sam smirked at her as she crooked a finger to encourage Steve to follow her. “A shower or a _shower_?”

“The clean up after a mission kind.”

“Plenty of time for that, but I don’t want to hear any complaints about dinner being cold if you’re not back for an hour.”

“We’ll be here,” Steve assured Sam, grinning at him over his shoulder. Natasha was already upstairs running the water.

He joined her under the warm spray shortly afterwards, shampooing her hair so she wouldn’t have to reach up and stretch out her injury. She turned into him as he worked up a lather, leaning her forehead against his chest. When he tipped her head back to rinse her hair, she murmured something unintelligible. “Huh?”

She waited until the suds had been washed away before meeting his eyes. “It’s what the woman was shouting on the news. Roughly translated, she said ‘it was the golden man, the golden man broke the door to free us, righteous light surrounded him and his head glowed with glory.’” She combed her fingers through his beard as she pulled him in for a kiss. “And you were having second thoughts about this.”

He wasn’t sure if she was talking about his beard or taking on missions, just that they very nearly missed Sam’s meticulously plated dinner.


	6. T-minus 455 Days

Sam was tired. No, not just tired. It was the kind of exhaustion that sank into his bones then radiated back out through his muscles and skin because there was no more space for it in his cells. He wasn’t currently sure if the soreness or fatigue were worse. He groaned as he tried to sit up from where he was lying on the couch and barely managed to wiggle his fingers. He’d slept down here after getting home from their mission late last night, being unable to climb the stairs to his bed and unwilling to get a piggyback ride from Steve like Natasha had.

Ever since the successful rescue of the Syrian refugees and shutdown of the human traffickers over six weeks ago, Fury had been sending them almost daily briefings about injustices with a ‘human suffering’ angle. Sam, Steve and Natasha had been off on missions across Europe, Africa and the Mideast almost constantly as a result. Their latest operation had involved group of Rumlow’s former asshole minions running a training camp outside N’djamena, Chad, where several kidnapped schoolgirls had been employed as ‘cooks.’ There had been an unnecessary amount of punching.

It didn’t help that the Wakandan operative working on the inside, Nakia, had gotten a few licks in on Sam before he’d managed to convince her they’d been sent on T’Challa’s advice to help her free the girls before clearing out the camp. She’d even landed another on his left flank instead of just telling him she was seeing someone after the op when he’d asked her if she wanted to grab a drink. Even if she’d been apologetic for her ridiculously quick reflexes,  the bruises still ached.

Sam groaned again, wondering when Wanda would be back. She’d passed by a while ago, saying she was headed into town to get some pastries at the bakery he’d discovered where the head(only) baker had taught him how to make authentic tijgerbrood. He’d barely had the energy to suggest she pick up steaks, potatoes, corn on the cob, mac n’ cheese ingredients – Steve had mentioned a craving for the basics while eating Nile perch and millet balls in Chad. If Sam’s brain was working correctly, Wanda had agreed to buy the necessities for a American meat n’ potatoes meal. She wasn’t suffering from the same exhaustion as the rest of them.

In spite of her statements about wanting to help the innocent, she had yet to join them on a mission. No one was mad about it. At least she looked cute riding the Vespa.

Sam closed his eyes for what felt like a few seconds, but when he opened them again, Natasha was sitting in the chair across from him, feet propped on the coffee table as she sipped from a coffee mug. She nudged another mug toward him with her toe. “I just poured that, so it should still be hot.”

“Uhhh…” He made a special effort to sit up. The coffee mug was impossibly heavy until the aroma hit his nostrils, at which point the laws of gravity no longer applied to it. He let out a less distressed groan after his first sip. “Oh, that French-press was so worth it.”

“You get the same effect with a fine ground with a quality filter.” She shrugged. “This is good, though.”

He eyed the mug currently warming his hands suspiciously. “Don’t you drink tea?”

“Depends. I do like this Sumatra blend.” She raised an eyebrow at him over her mug as she took another sip of coffee. “Did I add enough sugar for you?”

The coffee was as light and sweet as he liked it, a definite change from the half-cream, pinch of sugar she usually handed him. It raised his hackles. “You tryn’a butter me up?”

“How so?” She blinked innocently at him. He realized how lucky he was not to be Steve, facing physical requests from a woman who looked like her wearing that expression. ‘No’ wouldn’t even be in his vocabulary.

“Um.” Sam pulled himself together as best he could after a night on the lumpy living room couch. Natasha was beautiful but even more off-limits than a Wakandan operative who thought punching him in the ribs was an appropriate denial of a date. “What’s up, Nat?”

She fluttered her eyelashes at him for another moment before assuming her customary professional demeanor. “We’ve started to attract attention here.”

“Yeah, I told Steve not to do the topiaries, but he just…”

“The unicorns don’t help, but I mean with our constant comings and goings.”

Sam had already figured that out, but he had been hoping they would just be discussing a joint conversation about Steve’s hedge-trimming. “You got something in mind?”

“Some _place_ , actually.” She handed him a tablet with a map already displayed. “It’s a farm outside Châtelet. Belgium, not France. The house has four bedrooms and there’s a barn that we can hide a jet in. We’ll have to cut down from two jets to one, but we won’t have to worry about both, anyway.”

He nodded, tapping an icon that displayed a topographical map of the area. The property did seem to be a little more isolated than their current site, which would come in handy when they had to work in shifts. “And you wanna move because the neighbors think we’re a sex cult?”

She didn’t remark on the insinuation the young couple living next door had made one day when Sam and Steve had run into the in the market, even though they’d all had a good laugh about it over Sam’s Navarin d’Agneau. “The goal is to stay unnoticed, right?”

“I really don’t think Kerstan and Anika meant anything by…”

“Regardless, you’ve been here nearly eight months, right?”

“Closer to nine, but…” Sam thought about how little effort it would take to include his cookbooks in the moving preparations. “French cooking, huh?”

“We’d be in Belgium, but France isn’t a stretch. Wallonia is French-speaking, anyway. I think we should keep our options open. We’ll be safer if we move every few months.”

Enough energy to stand suddenly rushed through Sam’s body, either via coffee or indignation. He was still able to look down at Natasha as he asked, “Steve already shot this plan down, didn’t he?”

“He’s reluctant to listen to logic on the subject, perhaps.”

“Uh-huh. And you think you can convince me even though we’re not sleeping together?”

To his surprise and approval, she drew back. “This has nothing to do with sex. If you’re trying to negotiate a blow job for a ‘yes,’ you can meet me in the yard for an ass-kicking. And by the time you regain consciousness, I’m sure I can have Nakia here to beat you into the ground again.”

“Yeah, that sounds super hot and painful, but I was actually trying to say that if you couldn’t convince Cap with sex, why do you think you can convince me without it?”

Natasha didn’t move to hit him, but continued sipping her coffee. “Like I said, I thought I could appeal to logic with you. We’ve already got enough people living here to seem suspicious in such a small town, plus the vehicles and the route we always follow to the one place we can hide the jet around here, which is not all that secure without a serious drain on power from the cloaking device.”

Sam found himself wanting to hear more details about this new safe house. “And how’d you find this place? Fury?”

“One of my own contacts, actually. He’s pretty good about finding secure properties.” She glanced around the room significantly. “No one’s found this place, after all.”

“You didn’t seriously…” It wasn’t all that hard to believe. Steve wasn’t exactly an expert in espionage and he’d brought Sam and Wanda to this house without any hesitation. “Exactly how long have you had Steve’s back?”

She never wavered. “Since before you met him. Do you agree that we should all at least discuss moving, then?”

“I…guess?” Sam resented being ambushed as he woke up, but the feeling was mitigated by the fact that he’d woken up on the couch. “I s’pose I’ll find out the details over breakfast?”

“Of course.” Natasha stood in a fluid motion. “I’ll start the eggs. Over easy or scambled?”

“Um….”

“Sorry I don’t have a quiche planned but…I can do huevos rancheros if you’re not focused on tortillas?”

He took another sip of perfectly prepared coffee and replied, “Whatever you feel like making.”

Steve appeared moments later and immediately complimented Natasha on her breakfast, even it was just basic eggs, toast and coffee. Sam couldn’t deny it was satisfying when he sat down at the table a few minutes later to enjoy breakfast with his friends. Wanda joined them shortly, placing a box of muffins on the table after tucking a few paper wrapped packages into the refrigerator.

Although companionable, the meal was spent debating the pros and cons of moving to the property Natasha had arranged in Belgium. It eventually came down to Steve’s serious query, “I just have one question.”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “You can bring the scooter.”

He grinned like an idiot. “Okay then.”

Sam shook his head. He’d just lost an internal bet about the Vespa being the deal-breaker.


	7. T-minus 428 Days

It hadn’t taken long for Wanda to negotiate the train schedules from Châtelet to Brussels to Paris or London or wherever she needed to go.

Needed was a little strong. Wherever she wanted to go. Wanted.

This morning she was returning of the safe house after a weekend tryst with Vision in Rotterdam. The new house in Belgium was more isolated than their last had been, but still with easy access to a train station where she could park the Vespa safely. It was both harder to leave and harder to return every time she took one of her constitutionals, as Sam had dubbed her trips somewhat confusingly. She had been careful to reveal her intended destination every time since Natasha had told her how much it worried Steve and Sam when she disappeared, but she had yet to reveal the real reason for her extended time away.

As she pulled up to the house, Wanda noted that the barn was carefully secured, indicating that the jet was back. The team had left before she had and she was never sure when they would be back. They had been so focused on work she no longer wanted to do – not because she didn’t want to help but because she was terrified of being caught and sent back to prison – that they didn’t seem to notice her increasingly long absences. She hadn’t even met Vision during a week-long trip to Paris last month; she’d simply wandered the museums for days. She would need months to see all the things she wanted to in Paris alone! And what was stopping her? She wasn’t doing anyone any good the way she was living now, hiding in the countryside with occasional excursions into the world.

On the trains, she often saw other young people, traveling in groups or alone, wearing big backpacks and bigger smiles as they hopped on and off whenever the spirit took them. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but that type of existence appealed to her. She wouldn’t be returning to the US anytime soon and Vision was committed to being available for world-saving missions as dictated by the UN and still subject to the restrictions of the Sokovia Accords, so there were going to be limitations on their time together for the foreseeable future. But for her…she had no pressing reason to stay where she was. She walked inside and immediately sank into a seat at the kitchen table with the realization.

She was still processing her decision when she heard someone coming up behind her. “Mornin’ starshine,” Sam said as he leaned down to wrap her in a quick hug before he moved toward the coffee maker. “Welcome home. You got here just in time for me to make authentic Belgian waffles in Belgium on the waffle iron Steve and Nat got me as a present after our latest encounter with angry terrorists armed with automatic weapons.” He seemed to be doing a hundred things at once as he organized ingredients for waffles and coffee and fresh fruit on the kitchen counter. “Glad to see you home safe.”

“Thank you.” She’d already noticed that he was heating up water for tea for her. “I saw something on the news about Pakistan. Was that you?”

“Well, the kids in the school was us, but I don’t know if there was anything else.”

“The story said that Taliban fighters had been arrested after taking children hostage? I don’t remember anything about a school, but…”

Sam absolutely beamed as he interrupted her, “Yeah, that was us.” More detail about the news report she’d watched from her hotel bed came back to her and she realized that her friends had been involved in the liberation of young schoolchildren being held as hostages by men with unreasonable demands. “We ended up hanging around an extra day so the families could hold a feast in our honor. Those kids were super happy about my korma and I got that recipe from an old lady in Jalalabad. I mean, there may have been some Pakistani influence, but…hey. We had to book it to avoid the reporters, but still nice to be appreciated.”

“You are a good man, Sam.” There should have been more recognition of his role – of all the Avengers’ roles – in keeping the world that wanted no part of them safe. It was the kind of bravery she couldn’t muster in herself. “No one was hurt?”

“Just the usual bumps and bruises. Oh, but you should be prepared to listen to Steve crow about how he was right about Nat’s new bulletproof vest. She took two in the back and he would not stop about how she could have died without it and…”

“She could have!” Steve suddenly interrupted as he walked into the kitchen. “She’s got some nasty bruises from those hits as it is, but it could have been so much worse. Hi, Wanda.”

“Hello. Natasha is not seriously hurt, then?”

“She says she isn’t but,” Steve paused and shook his head, “I think she’s just putting on a brave face.”

“Yeah, like bein’ brave is just a front for Nat,” Sam replied, nudging Steve with his shoulder as he handed him a steaming coffee mug.

“Seriously. Don’t tell her I’m worried about her.”

“I think she already knows, dude.”

The exchange filled Wanda with a sad kind of joy as it went on. She would miss these moments when it was just the four of them, together, doing nothing in  particular. Steve sat at the table across from her as Sam moved around the kitchen in a sort of dance that reminded her of how he looked in the air. On one pass, he set a tea cup in front of her then on the next delivered the teapot. She poured herself a cup while Steve went on about the importance of taking care of themselves. “And I know we can handle the small stuff, but what if it’s something serious? What if it requires surgery?”

“Wakanda,” Natasha answered as she appeared wearing pajamas with her hair wrapped in a towel. “Or did you forget that T’Challa specifically told us we could come to him if we ever needed medical aid or anything else?”

“He also told us to try not to get hurt,” Steve replied, giving her a severe gaze that she shrugged off.

“Wait, you guys got to visit Wakanda?” Sam asked, Belgian waffle maker in mid-flip. “Was Nakia there? Did she ask about me?”

“We saw him in Egypt a few months ago, when we toured Abu Simbel.” Natasha poured herself a cup of coffee before sitting down next to Steve. “Did you want help cutting up those strawberries?”

“Nah.” Sam continued his practiced movements with the fruit on the cutting board. “Where was I when you were touring temples with royalty?”

“Scouting that supposed terrorist training camp in the desert.”

“The one that turned out to be a Bedouin caravan? Yeah, I didn’t almost get heatstroke looking into that one.”

Natasha shrugged again. “Told you to go at night.”

“How many times do I have to explain the…” A ding interrupted whatever explanation Sam was about to deliver. “Waffle up! Wanda, since you were the first one at the table.” He carefully pulled the waffle off the iron and placed it on a plate that he set in front of her with a flourish. “Fruit’ll be ready in a second, and I’ve got real maple syrup and whipped cream.”

“I cannot do this!” Wanda suddenly exclaimed, the thought bubbling up from the deepest part of her and taking no heed before coming out of her mouth.

Steve looked shocked, Sam looked crestfallen and Natasha looked…like she was enjoying her coffee. Sam eventually muttered, “You can just eat half the waffle if it’s too much.”

“It looks delicious, I just…I have been doing a lot of thinking lately, and I think it would be best if I move out.” She took a deep breath before looking up defiantly. “I need to be on my own for a while.”

As she’d expected, Steve spoke first once the initial shock wore off. “Wanda, I’m sorry if we’ve made you feel unwanted lately. I know we’ve been gone a lot and we didn’t want to abandon you, but…”

“It’s not that. You are doing good work.”

“We didn’t mean to make you feel like you don’t belong because you’ve chosen not to…to…” Steve looked to Natasha, who took pity on him.

“I don’t think she’s leaving because of something we did. She has an opportunity to live for herself and do what she wants for, well, for the first time. This is for you, isn’t it, Wanda?”

Not for the first time, Wanda was thankful she had a master spy to explain motivations she didn’t even really understand herself. “That is exactly right.”

“Okay.” Natasha stood and walked to the pantry where they kept one of the safes. While she was gone, Wanda kept her eyes on the door, ignoring the searching looks she knew she was getting from Steve and Sam. Although they were both likely burning to ask their own questions, they remained quiet until Natasha sat back down. She slid a sheaf of documents across the table. “For simplicity’s sake, you’re Polish. Wanda is still your first name, but your last name is Nowak, so you’re basically Wanda Smith as far as names go. Polish citizenship means you have free movement through the EU, but your passport shouldn’t raise any red flags if they run it. I recommend you stick to the trains and ferries, but domestic flights shouldn’t be a problem either.”

“Hold on, you can get us fake IDs?” Sam asked indignantly.

Natasha ignored him, continuing, “You’ll also need a birth certificate, so that’s in there. You’re from Krakow, by the way. There’s some school info if you need it, but I don’t think you’ll need to work – you can if you want to, of course – but I’ve set you up with a Swiss account that will cover both credit cards in there. I suggest you use one when you set up your iPhone, since you’ll probably want one if you don’t want to stand out, but the rules about communication still apply when you call us.”

Wanda dutifully pulled her vintage Nokia from the purse she’d been traveling with. “I will call every week.”

“Good. And you’re always welcome to stay with us, so don’t be a stranger.” Natasha leaned against Steve shoulder. “Anything you’d like to add?”

He was staring at her with a mix of admiration and awe. “You’re amazing.”

“Yeah, frickin’ astonishing,” Sam muttered as he leaned down and placed a waffle in front of her. “Why’d you have all that stuff ready for Wanda? Do you have Plan B packets for the rest of us?”

“Nothing this thorough.” Natasha began piling her waffle with toppings. “Why? Is there something you haven’t told us?”

Wanda looked up from the surprisingly convincing passport she’d just been handed. “You knew I wanted…well…that I would…”

“I knew you’d want the option. Just like I’m pretty sure Sam will be sticking around so I haven’t gotten him a clean identity. No reason to have one when you’re flying around with an illegal wingpack, taking out terrorists.”

Sam grumbled something as he prepped another waffle, but didn’t press. It was hard to argue with Natasha on the point. Wanda really couldn’t imagine Sam making a different choice than he had. She smiled as Natasha insisted that Steve take a bite of her waffle, which she was offering him off her fork.

Wanda took a small bite of her own waffle. “I won’t be leaving right away. And I won’t be taking all of my things.”

“Not like we’re gonna change the locks,” Sam said, having regained some of his usual joviality. “Steve, you want your own fork or is Nat gonna feed you from now on?”

Although she’d felt okay about her decision before announcing it, Wanda realized as the day went on that her friends respected it, which had been what worried her most. She found herself truly looking forward to the future for the first time since leaving the Raft.


	8. T-minus 419 Days

Sam sniffled as the train pulled out of the station, tears he’d promised himself he wouldn’t cry trailing down his cheeks. It wasn’t like Wanda was saying goodbye forever; given the way things had been going lately, they’d probably end up seeing her just as often as they did now. She was still moving out, though. It was like he imagined sending a kid off to college would be, except this kid was an internationally wanted fugitive who wouldn’t have immediate backup if she needed…

“Relax, Sam.” Natasha interrupted his racing thoughts with a pat on his shoulder. “She can crush a plum with her mind in less than 0.02 seconds.”

“Great. If a wolfpack attacks her with fruit, she’ll be all set.” She tilted her head as she gave him an appraising look. He flinched and reflexively blocked his most sensitive parts as he caught on. “Point taken. But what about other stuff? Official goons and…”

“She knows what to do. We had a full week to prep worst-case scenarios. She’s not stupid, Sam.”

He frowned, wiping a hand over his face. “You don’t have to be stupid to be vulnerable.”

She didn’t get a chance to reply before Steve jogged up to them, having run alongside the train for the length of the platform, waving. The big lunk wasn’t even out of breath. “They always used to do that in movies. Glad I tried it, but I don’t get the appeal.”

“You could try running home, see if that kicks something to life,” Natasha suggested. “Sam and I will go to the market while you train to be the first person to ever run the Tour de France.”

He pecked her cheek but didn’t argue before taking off. Sam really disliked being set up by these two – not Natasha so much, because that was her whole thing, but it got his goat when Steve managed to pull one over on him. Sam still followed Natasha back to the jeep. He did need to pick up a few things for the beef bourguignon dinner he’d planned. He reluctantly sat in the passenger seat, pointedly buckling his seat belt. “It’s cute how you get him to agree with your scheming even when you accomplish it by mocking him.”

She didn’t respond, turning her head as she backed out of the parking spot. They drove in silence for a few minutes, giving him too much time to think. He’d been thrown for a loop when she had gone to the safe and pulled out a whole life for Wanda to step into the moment the girl had expressed a desire to leave and Sam couldn’t for the life of him figure out if he was mad that Natasha had been so quick to have everything ready to go for Wanda or that she’d never even asked if he wanted something similar. Even more confusing was the idea that he thought he’d be angrier if it turned out she did have it.

Natasha chose that moment to ask, “Well?”

Figures she would know exactly when to interrupt his internal monologue. He played for time. “Well what?”

“You’ve been low-key death-scowling at me ever since I gave Wanda her documents.” He found it disconcerting that she’d adopted his own idioms for this heart to heart, but she didn’t seem to share his discomfort. “Are we gonna keep being awkward or do you want to clear the air?”

He decided not to drag out the interrogation. “How come you never offered me a free pass to travel and a no-strings bank account?”

She glanced at him incredulously before turning her eyes back to a sharp curve of the road. “If you really want to be French citizen Antoine Saint-Martin I can give you the documents when we get home.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

He sat back, still not sure if he was more or less conflicted. “Then you _did_ think I would skip out at some point.”

She shrugged. “Not without Pierre Laurent and Mathilde Bernard. That’s Steve and me. Of course, if we needed to use the Canadian passports we’d be Mike, Dave and Karen, with appropriately bland surnames. You didn’t honestly think I wouldn’t have a way for us to travel on quasi-legit passports in case the quinjet wasn’t an option, did you?”

That was less surprising. Expected even. It didn’t answer his questions, though. “I just don’t… You had everything all ready to go for Wanda. I just want to know if…well…”

“Sam…Wanda had one foot out the door before I even got here. Or to Holland. The point is that she wants something individual, something she hasn’t been able to have before. You’ve had that and decided that you’re a team player. First there was Pararescue, then the Avengers, now…whatever we’re calling ourselves. Have we come up with a team name yet or are we sticking with Avengers?”

“I suggested the Rogues, like, the Rogue Avengers, but shorter and…wait…” He didn’t want to get too off-track. “So, are you sayin’ you don’t have a clean identity you could send me out into the world with if I decided tomorrow that I want out?”

“Mm-hmm. Because people planning to run off always name their not-teams.”

“Y’know…okay. Fair enough.”

They were quiet until she parked the jeep along the main street in town. “To answer your actual question, I didn’t set up an ironclad escape for you because I knew you’d never ask for it or take it if offered. We both picked Steve, hell or high water.”

Sam nodded, feeling better about the situation. “Okay. Good. ‘Sides, you’d both starve without me.”

“We’d certainly have less variety in our diets.” She looped her arm through his as they walked along the sidewalk back toward the shops. “Definitely more canned things.”

“Yeah, don’t know if I can trust you to pick up my onions, mushrooms and carrots with an attitude like that.”

“Wine and cognac handled, in that case.” She squeezed his forearm between both of her hands before moving to cross the street. “Steve needs you, so talk to me if you ever do feel like getting out.”

“Never happen,” Sam needlessly affirmed. “Long as we both agree not to let Cap do anything stupid.”

“Of course. And all the sex rules still apply, so the couch remains safe.”

“It better!” he called after her as she stepped off the curb. She jutted a hip out in subtle reply. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad with just the three of them, saving the world one mission at a time.


	9. T-minus 388 Days

Natasha crawled through the fetid storm drain, cursing herself for being so thorough in her preparations. The satellite photos and advance intel had shown no less than two safe approaches to their target in Gdansk, but she’d just _had_ to check other options to ensure complete secrecy. Her catsuit was going to smell terrible when she got out of here. Luckily, she hadn’t worn her vibranium-weave ballistic vest. She had no idea if there was some special Wakandan cleaning agent that Shuri had also developed. She’d yet to meet T’Challa’s younger sister, but Steve had told her enough stories about the girl for Natasha to know she’d like her. For the moment, she was stuck soaking in runoff from the streets above.

At least it beat the other underground option, which involved a pipe carrying the drainage from commercial and household systems. She could handle oil, dog shit and rotting leaves, though she didn’t bother to suppress a shudder as a used condom floated past. People really had no respect for public streets anymore.

She hauled herself out of the pipe when her GPS indicated that she was underneath the target. If all went according to plan, she would be able to get into the building via a grate in the basement and place surveillance devices in strategic sites. She had taken on this particular task as a favor to Nick Fury, who was trying to take down a massive arms dealing syndicate via official channels. Anonymous recordings of conversations and a backdoor into their computer network would go a long way toward doing that. She waited under the opening for a good five minutes before raising the metal grate to climb out.

The hour chosen for the infiltration ensured that the building was empty of anyone other than low-level operatives sleeping off a night of heavy partying. As she placed bugs in unobtrusive spots throughout the building and slipped tapping devices into USB ports of various computers and the server, she realized how much she missed having Steve and Sam in her ear. They had run so many operations over the past months that she had become accustomed to their sometimes-unnecessary chatter – Sam in particular had caused several near-misses when she’d had to suppress laughter during missions. They were both back at the house in Châtelet, hopefully not freaking out that they weren’t somewhere nearby in support, though she had left them the jet in case of emergency.

She was only somewhat cognizant of the fact that this was the first time she’d worked without them since reuniting in the Netherlands. She placed her last bug and slipped past the last snoring guard, back to the basement grate with no one the wiser, although the building would likely smell a little funky for the next few hours. It would probably be blamed on anonymous vomit or the like. She didn’t check in with her handler until she was back in the pipe and halfway back to her access point. “Bravo Whiskey clear, copy?”

“Command, copy. Proceed to exit for extraction, fifty seconds.”

Natasha increased the pace of her crawl, arriving at the overhead grating just as a something parked over it. She held her breath for a moment before a panel on the bottom of the van was lifted to reveal her escape. She climbed out of the sewer and into the rear of a windowless van, pulling the metal grating back into place over the storm drain just as the van pulled back into traffic. “Damn, Maria. Give me a second to not fall through the floor.”

Maria Hill glanced over her shoulder from the driver’s seat. “What, you can’t manage…holy shit, what is that smell?”

“What you don’t like my new perfume?” Natasha sealed the underside panel of the van before flopping against its unfinished side. “I was gonna pitch it to Chanel or something. Rotting Underbelly of Gdansk, for the discerning Eastern European woman who thinks onions and cabbage are too subtle.”

“Don’t quit your day job, Romanoff.”

“What job? I’m a freelance volunteer.”

Maria chuckled. “Okay. But seriously…”

“Hey, I placed all the devices you gave me with no one the wiser. And if you think you’re suffering from the smell, imagine how I must feel.”

“Point taken. You can use my Lush bodywash when we get back to the safehouse. It’s mandarin orange.”

“That’ll be nice after my Clorox bath.”

“Yeah, like your hair can take extra bleaching at this point.”

“Y’know…” Natasha picked what she hoped was just a dead beetle from the blonde lock hanging in her face. She’d missed Maria since leaving her apartment and going full-time fugitive. “We should do this more often.”

“The mission in general or the sewer exploration?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah.” Maria made a final turn before parking in front of a small house in a neighborhood near the University Hospital. Sirens were audible in the distance. “Okay, you get inside and clean up while I hook Fury through to the surveillance equipment. Then we plan a girls’ night.”

Natasha gave a casual salute and tried not to think about how nice a cocktail would be right about now.  As she turned on the water and stripped, she reflected that she missed Steve, who could be joining her in the shower right now. Of course, her current odor might preclude any fun, but…she’d developed a fondness for bathing with him once missions were completed. It was a good way to get a good look at him and ensure that his injuries weren’t as awful as they sometimes looked or to just reconnect after a difficult operation. She sighed and stepped under the weak spray.

Twenty minutes of scrubbing later, she hoped the residual stink was just in her head, or maybe on the small rug where she’d tossed her catsuit. Maria had poked her head in to grab the garment and boots for ‘decontamination’ while Natasha was vigorously lathering her hair for the third time. She wrapped a towel around her midsection, grabbing another for her hair and walked out of the bathroom. She found Maria sitting in front of a laptop in the sparse kitchen. “Do I still smell?”

Maria leaned up as she took a few deep sniffs, but the reply came from the computer’s tiny speakers, “I’m sure you came out smelling like roses, Romanoff.”

“You should be a little more considerate, Nick. I placed all your little spy toys just like you wanted.”

Fury chuckled. “Yep, Hill just patched us into their network. No chatter yet, but the computers are already providing a treasure trove. I expect to take this to Interpol in under a week. Those dummies won’t know what hit ‘em.”

“Where did you set up a team to monitor them? I don’t remember placing anything with a transmission range of more than a few hundred yards.”

“Can’t risk my assets with too much hands-on work. It’s enough they think Hill was the only one in Gdansk.”

Maria explained his cryptic remark, “The actual receiver for the bugs is in the USB plugs you placed, so they’re all transmitting over the internet. We can monitor from anywhere in the world.”

“Glad I rate as worthwhile to risk,” Natasha replied, wringing her hair with her towel. “You really can’t smell anything?”

“You’re fine,” Maria answered. “Are we clear for extraction now?”

“Yeah, go whenever Romanoff thinks she’s clean enough.”

Natasha made a face at the screen, but Fury had already signed off. “No idea how you put up with him.”

“I’m more diplomatic than you are.”

“I can be diplomatic when I need to be.”

“Yeah, but you’d rather just be yourself.” Maria raised an eyebrow in a silent challenge.

Natasha paused before replying, “I am pretty fun.”

“I’m sure Steve thinks so.”

“Even _you_ think so, and we’re not fucking.” Natasha bit off the last word, thinking about how Steve disliked characterizing their relationship so casually. It must have rubbed off on her or something. She deflected, “What did you have in mind for a girls’ night? Paris? Barcelona? Sam?”

“Sam’s a girl now? Wow, you guys have really committed to the undercover thing.”

“Hey, if you just want to have girls’ night and not a double date…”

“What, since you’ve finally caved and accepted that you’re keeping Steve for yourself you have to set up everyone else you know?”

“I just think….” The image of Sam and Maria laughing over a meal in the lounge at Avengers HQ flashed through her head, but was quickly supplanted by a minor detail. “Wait, what do you mean, finally?”

Maria rolled her eyes. “Please. I remember when you tried to set him up with that girl from PR. The one who kept collecting reprimands for taking selfies at work?”

“Um…Hannah? No, Kayla.”

“Whoever. You always suggested women you knew would terrify him so he would always come back to you.”

“No, I just ran out of women I thought he’d actually like and started getting desperate.” Natasha didn’t mention that she’d totally avoided introducing him to Sharon Carter, even before Fury had assigned her to neighbor duty. She wondered if she’d been concerned about them making a connection, as they had after Peggy’s funeral. Thank God Sharon had developed a psychological theory about that. Natasha refocused on the conversation at hand. “Don’t you remember how lonely he was when he first came to SHIELD?”

“I remember how much he liked spending time with you.”

“Because he had to. Fury partnered us. We had to work together.”

“Nat, you’re in love with the guy. You moved in with his fugitive caravan. I think you can stop pretending it’s just a temporary coincidence.”

Natasha found herself smiling and ducking her head, though it was pointless when Maria was watching her so closely. “I…I’m gonna go get dressed.”

“Uh-huh. Don’t want to worry Steve longer than necessary.”

“I don’t know why I hang out with you,” Natasha muttered under her breath, knowing Maria wouldn’t take it the wrong way. They’d formed an oddly comfortable friendship after years on the top tier of SHIELD and beyond. Natasha didn’t have a problem working exclusively with men, but there were times that only another woman could commiserate. Besides, no one else with top secret clearance could be counted on for a spare hair tie or tampon. Glad she didn’t need either at the moment, she pulled on a shirt and pair of pants from the bag she’d brought with her and stepped back into the living room. “I’m ready.”

Maria looked up from typing at light speed. “Great, but your catsuit is still in the washing machine. Unless you want to just burn it.”

“Tempting, but can we just seal in a biohazard bag or something?”

“I suppose, though I should note I’m suspicious about your reluctance to light a fire.”

“Says the woman who refuses to turn up the heat with the Falcon.”

“I’ll get the biohazard bag.”

Natasha cackled with laughter. “And you haven’t even tried his cooking yet! C’est magnifique!”

As Maria stomped out of the room, Natasha wondered if she should invite her friend to visit in Châtelet. Steve and Sam trusted her and they had an extra room… Natasha brushed the thought aside, knowing she couldn’t make the suggestion without consulting Steve and Sam first, and that Maria wouldn’t cede her place in the world for a chance at a relationship that wasn’t even assured. Hell, Maria might not quit being Fury’s right hand and left eye even if she did have a bona fide confirmation of romantic success. Loyalty was one of the things Natasha appreciated in the woman. She decided to concede the non-fight when Maria reappeared holding a red bag with an easily recognizable black symbol stamped on it. “So I heard that Barcelona has amazing nightlife.”

Maria smiled as she made a show of putting on gloves to remove Natasha’s catsuit from the washing machine. “Sticking to the continent?”

“I didn’t think you were up for Ibiza, but…”

“I’d do beers in a Welsh local,” Maria interrupted. “Not that I’m desperate for female companionship, but…it was nice having you stay at my place.”

Natasha was unable to produce a snarky response for a moment. “Yeah. It wasn’t bad. I could have used less TV, but…”

“Hey _Ally McBeal_ and the Star’s Hollow focused seasons of _Gilmore Girls_ are quality entertainment!”

“How are you not a _Westworld_ person?”

“I like _Westworld_ , I just…”

“No, I meant how are you human and not a robot.”

“Don’t make me call the cops on you the moment we get to Ibiza.”

Natasha grinned as they left the house, carrying away all evidence of their presence. She was sure Sam would have at least a month to plan a grand dinner for Maria’s visit to their place.


	10. T-minus 336 Days

Steve had figured that their first official vacation as a couple would eventually include in plenty of sex, but he hadn’t anticipated being mauled the second they were alone in their room. Now he grasped Natasha’s hips as she straddled him, her thighs pushing tightly against his. She cried out softly as their bodies pressed together. He loved the view when she was on top of him – the expression on her face, the bounce of her breasts, the visible clench of the muscles in her stomach and thighs as she rode him. He especially loved the way her lips parted in a soft gasp when he first entered her. It was always a fight to keep his eyes open and enjoy the show versus squeezing them shut as he enjoyed the sensation of her enveloping him.

He lost the battle to keep his gaze on her face as his head tipped back, eyes closing involuntarily. “Natasha…”

“Steve, you feel so…” Her hips pressed against him, encouraging a reciprocal thrust. “Oh, God! Steve!”

He lost all sense of the luxurious hotel room in the Seychelles – or a private island that was property of the Wakandan government but technically administered by the Republic of Seychelles – focusing on Natasha as she moved on top of him. “Nat…oh, Natasha.”

“Harder!” she cried as her nails dug into his chest. She ground her hips against him with every thrust. Her thumbs swept over his sensitive nipples as she ran her hands over his chest, making him thrust up into her all the harder. “Steve!”

He cried out as she clenched around him, mercilessly squeezing him with her internal muscles. “God, Nat, I can’t…”

“Just a little…Steve!” She contracted in a full body rictus, tensing in a crescent as she came with an ardent cry on his next thrust. “Holy…”

“Nat!” He forgot everything else as he cried her name, pulling her hips against his as pressed up into her. He wasn’t sure how long he blanked out before he let go of her hips, but it was only to wrap his arms around her as she panted atop his chest. “That…you are amazing.”

Her lips worked against his neck for a moment before she answered, “You’re not so bad yourself.”

“We should probably…” He grasped her hips again to stop her from sliding off him. “I mean, eventually we should think about heading to dinner.” They had been personally invited to this retreat for Wakandan bigwigs by the king himself after aiding him in shutting down a violent criminal gang in Somalia the previous month and Steve was intent on making a good impression, especially with Wakanda on the verge of engaging fully with the international community. They were already missing the cocktail reception. “We don’t want to be bad guests.”

“T’Challa said it wasn’t a formal affair tonight, just a little welcome thing. Besides, Sam is doing a great job being our ambassador.”

“Um…” Rather than being frustrated when he saw Nakia on T’Challa’s arm, Sam had immediately started flirting with one of the bald warrior women of the king’s personal guard.

Natasha just continued, “Besides, he’s barely had time to hit on every member of the Dora Milaje yet. He’ll either be flirting or recovering from beatings for the next day or so, at least.”

“Natasha…”

“What? He should have the opportunity to spend time with a beautiful woman. It’s the least we can give him since you don’t want Maria to visit.”

He sighed. Ever since she’d run the operation for Fury and spent time with Maria, Natasha had been suggesting her friend should be welcome at the safe house. Although Steve trusted Hill, he was less confident in Fury keeping their secret, and Hill still worked for Fury. It would only take a favorable moment to trade their location to whoever offered the best deal. No matter what Natasha said about the man’s reliability, Steve couldn’t trust Fury. He tangled his fingers in Natasha’s hair, pulling her in for a soft kiss. “I don’t want to be stubborn, but…”

“I know.” Her fingernails combed through his beard. “We have to keep Sam and Wanda safe to the degree that we can. I get that you don’t trust Nick and it’s fine.”

“I know Agent Hill is your friend and maybe we could set up a meeting in Barcelona, like you said. I just…”

She suddenly interrupted, “You do realize that Nick already knows how to find us, right?”

“He…what?”

“He hacked our WiFi in Holland. He’s been in contact with us in Châtelet. He knows where we are. We can’t hide from him as long as he’s feeding us intel. And probably not even if we don’t keep relying on him as a source, though I think we need his intel if we want to keep working.”

Steve ran his hands down her body, tracing the curves of her ribs to her waist to her hips. “We don’t…I mean, T’Challa’s people…” he trailed off as he kissed her neck, burying his face in her soft skin. “I suppose if he’s our best option.”

“I’m sorry I’ve been pushy about inviting Maria to our place. I do think it would be good for Sam. It can’t be easy for him, seeing us together all the time.”

“Did he say something to you?” Steve went back and forth about whether he and Natasha were overly, annoyingly affectionate, but Sam had never said anything beyond his usual good-natured ribbing.

“No, but…we all live together and he knows that we…Steve…” She suddenly grasped his neck, forcing his head into a position to face her. “I love you.”

Sam was totally forgotten and Steve nearly bit off his own tongue as she pressed her lips to his. The nature of their relationship had been clear for a while, even if they hadn’t explicitly spoken about it. He managed to sputter between kisses, “I love you, too.”

“I know you do, I just …you know how I feel about you, don’t you?” Her kisses confirmed the statement he already knew to be true, but her beautiful body was distracting him from responding. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone.”

“Neither have I. Natasha, I know that you love me. You don’t have to say it for me to know it.”

“I know, Steve. I know. I just…why do you love me?”

He had no idea how to respond with her arms and legs wrapped around him. “Natasha, what brought this on?”

“You are so…” She bit her lower lip as he pressed hips against her. “Tell me this isn’t just for the moment. Tell me this is forever.”

“Nat…you know we can’t guarantee that. There’ll always be something. But you have me for as long as we’re able to be together.”

“Sometimes I hate that you’re so honest.”

“What do you mean?”

“I want to believe that we’ll always have this. That we’ll always be together.” Her eyes shone with…tears? “Steve, promise me.”

“Anything.”

“You don’t even know what I’m asking.”

“But I’m promising you anything. Anything that’s mine to give is yours.”

“Thank you.”

This kiss was less desperate, conveying the deep connection they shared. It shouldn’t have felt so significant, not with her on top of him as they kissed and embraced. She was his love, his world, his… “Nat…stop.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I just…did something happen?”

“No.”

“Nat…”

“I got a message from Clint. He wants to arrange a meeting.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Don’t tense up. The kids just miss me.”

 “Oh.” He flashed back to Auntie Nat interacting with the kids on Clint’s farm. “You want to talk about a family of our own.”

“What?” Her eyes widened as she pulled away from him. “Why would you think that?”

“I just thought….you said…”

“Me wanting to see my niece and nephews is in no way indicative of me wanting kids that I…not that I can have kids anyway, so it’s not a conversation we need to have.” She squirmed out of his arms, though she settled in beside him rather than leaving the bed. “Wow, you went from zero to children a little faster than I’m comfortable with.”

“You…wait, what?” Steve was stuck on her offhand comment of the moment before. He hadn’t really worried about an unplanned pregnancy because he assumed Natasha had that covered. He’d read about how ‘The Pill’ had positively affected women’s lives when it was introduced and immediately skipped to the next chapter of that particular book. Now he felt guilty for reasons not related to his ignorance of modern birth control. “You…you said you can’t have children? Ever?”

“That is what I said. If you feel like taking back everything you said a few minutes ago, I would understand.”

“I would never.” He pulled her into an embrace and held her tightly as he said, “It’s not important to me. If we never…if it’s just us, that’s okay. You’re it for me. I don’t need anything but you.”

He felt her take a few deep breaths before she murmured into his chest, “We need to rethink vacations if they’re all gonna be emotional rollercoasters.”

“Started out pretty well.” Dipping his head, he caught her lips in a soft kiss. “Maybe we should, um…”

She gave his hardening cock a firm stroke. “You are such a man.”

He hesitated for a moment in spite of her continued handiwork. “I love you, Natasha. Nothing will ever change that.”

“I love you,” she whispered back. “Why is that so terrifying?”

“The same reason I wanted you to get some body armor.”

“Very true. Think T’Challa will let you have a panther suit?”

“Well, I doubt…” A sudden insistent knock on the door interrupted him.

She groaned and hiked her leg up over his hip. “We’re going to ignore that, aren’t we?”

He was about to agree when Sam’s panicked voice came through the door, “Steve, get off Nat and let me in!”

“Guess Wakandan women are immune to Sam’s charms.” Natasha laughed as Steve pulled away and wrapped the sheet around his waist. “Lock him in the bathroom and come back to bed.”

It was a tempting suggestion, but he just ended up letting Sam in and listening to a story about how he’d met a woman named Okoye who was even scarier than Natasha, possibly in the same way, and ended with Sam needed a place to hide for at least a few hours. So much for the ambassadorship.

 


	11. T-minus 307 Days

The sun reflected off the Mediterranean – technically it was the Tyrrhenian Sea, but whatever – was coupled with the cloudless sky to make the port of Naples nearly unbearable, but at least Sam had a good reason to keep his sunglasses and ball cap on as he walked beside Steve along the brightly colored street. The upper decks of three giant white cruise ships were visible over the buildings on their left and he had to admit that they didn’t look entirely out of place in the touristy crowd. For reasons no one had clearly explained, they were meeting Natasha here to pick her up and take her home after her visit with the Barton family. He could understand classic misdirection, but if she wanted to fly into an airport that wasn’t too close to their safe house, why couldn’t she have picked one far away from both an active volcano and the US Sixth Fleet? He was still undecided about whether or not he was mad that she apparently had a solid enough ID to take a commercial international flight with no problem.

“Why couldn’t she just meet us somewhere, y’know…” He already made the point about her sneaking out to where they’d hidden the quinjet outside the city. Several times. He’d even added some superlatives about Natasha’s high-level sneaking expertise. Steve had just responded with vague comments about authentic Italian food and seeing some of the sights while they had the opportunity.

Of course, he was currently eyeing an establishment that appeared to rent scooters to tourists. Sam rolled his eyes. “No. _No!_ Don’t even think it!”

“Just for an hour!” Steve checked his watch. “We could take a peek around the city really quick and be back before…”

“You got a Vespa at home, dude.”

“Yeah, but…” He gestured to a large pack of the scooters idling at a red light as another pack crossed in front of them. “Here I’d fit in.”

Sam was unable to contain his laughter, but was surprised to have it joined by another familiar one. “Not even a little. Face it, Steve, you’ve got a Harley frame.”

“Nat!” Steve turned and swept the blonde into his arms for a long embrace. Sam hadn’t been particularly concerned about Natasha’s innocuous absence, although it had changed the vibe at home – mostly due to sulky Steve moping around. The kiss lingered as he held her up, her feet not even touching the pavement. It hadn’t even been a week and they were acting like they’d been apart for months. Lucky idiots.

He was about to interrupt them with a snarky comment, but he was beat to it. “Hey, tone it down, lovebirds. There are angry nuns glaring from across the street.”

Sam turned in amazement to see Maria Hill standing beside him. She was wearing a pretty flowered dress that he couldn’t imagine her selecting for herself, but she fit in here, with her sandals and sunglasses and floppy hat. She even had a big striped tote bag that proclaimed she’d been to Capri. Perfect tourist costume. He returned her smile and lifted her hand to his lips to press a kiss to her knuckles. “Ciao bella.”

Her blue eyes sparkled when she lowered her dark sunglasses to look at him. “It’s good to see you, Sam. Really good.”

Natasha was suddenly pressing light kisses to both of his cheeks as she grasped his face. “Miss me?”

“Not as much as Steve, but…” It had been odd not having her around. At least Steve hadn’t had a problem eating the leftovers when Sam continuously unconsciously cooked meals for three while she was gone. He glanced involuntarily toward Maria, which Natasha immediately caught. He lowered his voice to whisper, “Didn’t realize this was more than just a quick trip.”

“Disappointed?”

“Only that your boy managed to keep it a secret.” He gave Steve a brotherly shove in the shoulder. “Since when can he keep a secret?”

The question hung in the air for a moment before all four of them burst into laughter. Natasha easily hooked one arm through Maria’s and proclaimed, “I think we should get something to eat and I’ve got just the place in mind.”

Sam was left walking beside Steve again as the ladies led the way, occasionally pausing to inspect shop windows or street vendors’ wares. He shook his head as he watched Maria’s hips sway casually. “Can’t believe you kept this under wraps,” he murmured.

Steve positively beamed in reply, his joyful expression almost too much even with his sunglasses on. “Nat’s been bugging me about it and…hey, I figured, when in Rome…”

“Close enough.”

“Really, Sam. You shouldn’t be stuck with just me and Nat and sometimes Wanda. If this is something you want to make work…”

“Hey, hey. Slow down, Yenta.” Sam wasn’t about to admit how happy he was to see Maria, or that he’d already been planning a homecooked, five course meal to impress her the moment she’d invented a herd of angry nuns. “Let’s just have a bite and see what happens, huh?”

Steve looked sheepishly at his feet, though his gaze quickly drifted up to Natasha. “They look great, don’t they?”

Natasha glanced over her shoulder at that moment and flashed a grin at Steve. She was wearing a tank top and a billowy skirt that ended just below her knees, her short blonde hair free to drift in the breeze. It was nice and all, but Maria looked so different in her sundress that Sam couldn’t help but focus on her. Even her heels looked soft and touchable as her sandals flopped against them with each step.

He remained hypnotized by the play of muscle under the just-bronzed skin of her calves until their small group arrived at ‘just the place’ of Natasha’s behind the Piazza del Plebiscito. The place turned out to be a hole in the wall restaurant where the elderly proprietors greeted her arrival with shouts of, “Natalia meravigliosa!”

As they were led to a cramped table near the back of the establishment, Natasha hissed a quick explanation about saving the couple and their children from death squads in Kosovo some years back. By the time the effusive wife returned with a bottle of wine and four glasses, they’d all accepted the story and moved on to teasing each other. Natasha ordered some kind of squid appetizer (Sam was pleased to recognize ‘calamari’ in the string of otherwise nonsense she spurted) without looking at a menu. She continued as the woman swept away, long black skirts cleaning the floor like an efficient broom, “So Maria was sitting in front of the Senate Appropriations Committee with only a post-it from Fury saying, ‘Get us money,’ and she went into a half-hour long speech about maintaining the integrity of the intelligence apparatus…”

“Which you exploded two months later with your little dare to put you and Cap in jail, not that we had an agency to fund at that point,” Maria ended with a huff. Sam tried not to watch too hungrily as she raised her wineglass to her lips to take a sip. “At least no one had highlights of my testimony to play on cable news _ad infinitum_.”

Natasha frowned for a moment, but her lips suddenly quirked up. “It’s funny, but the only Latin words I can think of that might translate to ‘dork’ also mean ‘penis.’” She leaned into Steve at the small table. “I picked the most polite word I could think of, by the way.”

“Uh-huh.” He fanned himself with the menu for a moment before asking, “Any recommendations?”

“Spaghetti alla vongole,” she replied without ever looking at the menu. “Alici dorate e fritte if you’re feeling brave.”

When the grinning woman returned with a second bottle of wine, Sam just pointed to something on the menu and hoped for the best. He was encouraged by Natasha’s nod, but remained suspicious through the calamari appetizer until a plate of eggplant parmigiana was placed in front of him. Their lunch was spent sharing laughs and bites off their plates. Sam even asked for the recipe for his own meal, which the old man delivered with a flourish and an assurance that anything was too little for the amici di Natalia. They still accepted her generous tip as the group left, along with a guarantee that their daughter would be getting her acceptance letter from Cornell within the month.

“Erisa is a smart girl who deserves the best chances in life. Might as well keep working for good where I can,” Natasha said with a shrug as they walked down the street. “They’re good people.”

“Nat…” Steve nuzzled against her ear, causing Sam to look away. He’d somehow ended up walking with Maria as they left the restaurant and he didn’t want to look jealous of his friends’ relationship. He wasn’t envious of either of them personally, because they were so perfect together that… Damn. So what if he sometimes wished he could have what they did with someone? He’d be crazy not to! Maria Hill was definitely not that person, even if she did seem infinitely more approachable than Okoye the demon-warrior of Wakanda who had reacted to his advances like he’d triggered a poison-response in her blood or something, regardless of what Natasha had later said about the woman’s friendliness. He was convinced it was some kind of ass-kicking woman hormone they both exuded that helped them recognize fellow ass-kickers.

Of course, Maria was an ass-kicking woman and _she_ wasn’t pushing Sam away as he laced his fingers with hers on their walk through the port. Conversation was easy as they discussed her commitments to the Avengers and his new interest in the culinary arts. It was surprisingly nice to talk to someone outside their limited social circle. If that person happened to be a person he was attracted to, so much the…

“But it’s a guided tour!” Steve had stopped in front of one of the scooter rental places to argue his case. “We can see the whole city in an hour and a half!”

Sam could already sense that Natasha was only going to offer token resistance to wrapping herself around Steve for ninety minutes, so he said, “You guys have fun. We’ll meet you back here, okay?”

As expected, Natasha didn’t fight Steve further on the Vespa tour. Sam turned to Maria as they continued down the street. “Hope I didn’t overstep any lines volunteering the lovebirds on a scooter thing while excluding us.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “I’d have been more worried if you had agreed to the…thing.” She waved her hands at a group of scooters with a strange three-wheeled configuration that passed – the two front wheels looked like they should have been training wheels for a larger wheel that simply wasn’t there. “Besides, I’ve ridden bitch with Natasha before.”

“Uh, that sounds like a story that needs to be told.”

“Well, since that mission report was released with the SHIELD file dump, we were there as a small team in Budapest…”

Two hours later, they were laughing over gelato as they strolled along the waterfront. Sam couldn’t recall a more pleasant date in the past few years. “So you just…”

“Hey, if you want details about the dye in the river, call the Plumbers Local in Chicago, but don’t ask me to plumb the motivations of frat boys.”

He laughed again as he bit into his stracciatella. “Wish I had some more Lackland stories for you, but I don’t think I can top that.”

“Eh, I’m sure you have something better than your desperate cookies outside chow moments.”

“Wish I did.” Truthfully, Sam had known very little outside the military, in spite of his truncated time with the Air Force. The VA had provided him with a familiar schedule with plenty of volunteer hours to limit his unstructured off-time and the Avengers had been almost like active duty, with team camaraderie filling in the time between training missions and actual missions.

Just as he was about to lean in for a kiss, she said, “Look, Sam, I like you. I really do. And if you’d asked me out months ago then things might be very different right now. But the fact is…”

“We’re not in a great spot to be starting a relationship just now.” He sighed heavily. “Don’t s’pose Nat planned an overnight with no regrets.”

“Yeah.” Maria pushed her sunglasses into her hair. “But I’d regret if it was only one night with you.”

Sam let his lips press against Maria’s even as Steve approached, bragging about the comprehensiveness of the Vespa tour he and Natasha had taken.


	12. T-minus 294 Days

Natasha wasn’t sure if she should arrange an immediate clandestine date between Sam and Maria or begin researching time machines so they could return to Avengers HQ before the Sokovia Accords. The latter seemed like the more reasonable option under the circumstances. She was perfectly happy when they returned to their safe house, but she had Steve. Sam, in spite of his perpetually sunny demeanor, was clearly pining. There didn’t seem to be a less drastic solution for the current situation in the household – short of the perfectly logical _inviting Maria for a visit_ – so it proved to be a godsend when Wanda appeared out of the blue, pushing open the door one morning as they settled in for breakfast.

The poor girl most likely felt ambushed when she walked into Steve’s spontaneous bear hug. “How are you doing?”

Sam followed up with, “Are you hungry?” as he reached an arm toward her while continuing to hold a cast iron frying pan over the stove. “I just got some truffles that I’m using in the scrambled eggs and I know how you like my hash browns.”

“That sounds wonderful.” She extricated herself from Steve’s embrace and moved to give Sam a hug.

Natasha didn’t get up from the table, but continued sipping her tea. “Finished with the museums in Paris?” She was aware that her question was the least personal, but Wanda had never been on terribly personal terms with her fellow fugitives, no matter what Steve and Sam liked to think. You just couldn’t share yourself with people you intended to leave.

Wanda sat down without attempting to hug Natasha, which the latter appreciated. “The Louvre is beautiful and the Orangerie at the Tuileries had some amazing exhibits, but Orsay was my favorite.”

“I always figured you for an impressionist.” Natasha did a brief impression of Wanda’s finger-waving magic, though she lacked to power to back it up. Oddly, Natasha was picturing moving water lilies around a pond as she moved her hands.  “It’s all about capturing the lived experience of things rather than solitary moments.” She finished her impromptu performance with her arms in low fifth position. “I love Degas’ ballerina paintings.”

Wanda gazed at her curiously for a moment before turning to Sam. “So, is there tea to go with this amazing breakfast?”

Sam was more effusive than he had been in the past two weeks and he set aside his modest intentions of truffle scrambled eggs and whipped up an elaborate sweet crȇpe dish involving fruits and goat cheese, involving Wanda in the preparation. Natasha leaned against Steve at the table as they watched, whispering, “You can’t tell me that’s not noticeable.”

“Nat…” His arm remained around her shoulders in spite of the warning tone in his voice. He had been feeling guilty about the trip to Naples and the double date with Maria; she could tell even though he hadn’t mentioned it explicitly. He let his fingertips run up her neck as he dipped his head. “If we start with Maria, where would it end? The Bartons? Fury? A new HQ?”

“Just because we don’t have US backing…” she began in a hiss, but trailed off. They’d been over this argument many times. As long as Thaddeus Ross was US Secretary of State, they had little hope of convincing any UN member states of openly endorsing the Rogue Avengers. If Fury was going to keep his underground SHIELD replacement operation going, he would remain stateside. Not many options jumped to the forefront, short of moving to Wakanda and hoping for the best or going full-out guns blazing underworld. Natasha nuzzled into Steve’s neck with a sigh. “This sucks.”

“Hey, you picked this house.”

She swatted his chest as she pulled away, more interested in Sam’s breakfast creation than a snark-off. The four ate in companionable silence for a time before her idiot boyfriend asked, “Are you staying with us awhile, Wanda?”

“I do not know.”

After an extended silence filled only by the clinking of flatware against china, Natasha said, “The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam is lovely.” She ignored Steve’s elbow in her ribs, continuing, “Or if you’re interested in more modern art, there’s a place in Frankfurt I could recommend. Or if you want to visit the Hermitage in St. Petersburg I can certainly…”

Wanda looked up with a grateful smile. “I was actually thinking about learning more about history.”

“Classical? Medieval? Renaissance?” Natasha had destinations in mind for any period, though she held back on the Russian ones. “Enlightenment? Industrial Revolution? Ottoman?”

“Hey, cool it, ninth grade AP,” Sam interrupted. “Don’t shove poor Wanda out the door the moment she gets here.”

Natasha frowned. Wanda had been conscientious about updating them with her location and contact details, even sending detailed emails with pictures (from a number of untraceable internet cafés, clever girl) about the things she was seeing and doing. Although Natasha doubted they were getting the full story, they were getting enough to back Wanda up in the even of an incident. The kid didn’t need additional pressure from surrogate big brothers who meant well but ended up being oppressive. She made a command decision and forcibly turned the conversation to a different topic. “You’ve been working on your accent.”

Wanda blushed. “Yes. I try to change it depending on the company. The only thing most people know about Sokovia relates to the accords, so it’s much easier to be Polish. And even if I know I have to sound Polish around people who think I’m Wanda Nowak, it doesn’t always hurt to sound American.”

“The yell and ask for the manager strategy,” Natasha replied, being familiar with the white woman solution for all wrongs. “Whatever works.”

Steve looked a bit confused, but Sam nodded knowingly. “Universal skeleton key.”

“Hopefully not the whole universe. We’ll ask Thor next time he’s around.” She took a bite of her fruit and cheese-stuffed crȇpe. “This is amazing, by the way.”

“Food is the real universal language. Math can suck it.” He gave her a nod as he took a sip of coffee. “Of course, if you _do_ go to Amsterdam, maybe stop by the market near our old house and grab me a few jars of magic berry jam.”

Wanda nodded. “I can do that.”

Natasha smiled as she resumed her position leaning against Steve. If they couldn’t have the whole team together, it was nice to have as many of them in one location as they could. She grasped his hand and squeezed it when he reached for his coffee mug. He whispered into her ear, “Maybe you’ll take me on a tour of the Winter Palace someday.”

“Maybe.” She pecked his cheek in spite of her conflicting feelings over the thought. The Palace was huge and she could always take him and easily avoid the Armorial Hall where she had assassinated the Romanian consul during one of her first missions for the Red Room. “We’d need at least a month to do all of Petersburg and Tsarskoye Selo, assuming the Mariinsky is performing something worth seeing. I demand Tchaikovsky or Prokofiev, though I’d be willing to negotiate Stravinsky if it’s _The Firebird_.”

“Planning your honeymoon?” Sam rolled his eyes and started picking up their empty plates from the table. Steve began coughing into his coffee mug. Rather than reassuring him, Natasha took the opportunity to grab Wanda and pull her outside. They didn’t need to add marriage into their current situation.

They didn’t have a porch, but they’d set up a casual sitting area around a table on the back lawn. Natasha made herself comfortable and waited for Wanda to do the same. Natasha had managed to collect both of their mugs from the kitchen table, so at least they had tea to occupy them. They sat in silence for a few moments, with only the birds and the argument from the kitchen as a backdrop.

Wanda eventually sighed. “Have I not been updating you often enough?”

“No, we agreed on once a week and you’re more than meeting that. They just worry.” It was true that, in spite of frequent updates, both Steve and Sam began to worry about Wanda two to three days after her last call. Although Natasha had never had a real family of her own, she had some context. She smiled as she thought back to Maria telling her about how Clint had paced relentlessly back and forth across Ops during her first solo mission for SHIELD. “They just want to be sure you’re safe. Big brothers, remember?”

“I do not need…” Wanda began vehemently, but she quickly softened. “I do not want them to worry.”

“Doesn’t mean they won’t. You just have to keep living your life and rely on the fact that Steve and Sam are grown men who will get over themselves at the end of the day. You’re not responsible for their worrying.”

“Then you do not worry?” She blinked at Natasha over her mug as she took a delicate sip.

“Nice try, but I’m not gonna fall into your needy little trap. You’ve kept us appraised on your location as agreed and you’re an adult who can manage her own life. Until you give me a reason to think either of those things isn’t true, you’ve got your independence, free and clear.”

“Thank you.”

“No need.”

“There is. I have seen so much and met so many people in the past months and I just…it has been enlightening. I never thought I would have the opportunity to…be normal.” She fiddled with one of the silver bangles on her wrist. “I hope I have not been spending too much.”

Natasha laughed at that. “Wanda, you could be living at the Four Seasons and bathing in Cristal every night and still not wipe out that account.”

“I really do not wish to live on your charity.”

“It’s not technically mine. Those assets represent what I seized from a particularly nasty criminal organization when I wiped them off the face of the Earth. I can only funnel so much to charities every month, so it’s good it’s going somewhere else it’ll be useful.” Oddly, Natasha began to feel uncomfortable under Wanda’s unblinking gaze. “Hey, if you’d rather spend the Russian Mafia or the Taliban’s money, just say the word.”

Wanda suddenly sprang from her seat to wrap Natasha in a hug. It was more disconcerting than the stare. She wasn’t sure why hugs were so discomfiting when they came from Wanda; it had to be the strange sense of pure gratitude that always accompanied them, totally lacking the intimacy with Steve, the familial with Clint, the self-aware irony with Maria. Wanda’s hugs almost exclusively communicated her appreciation for the person she was embracing – not just what they’d done, but _them_. It was probably something to do with her powers.

Natasha patted her back, hoping the acknowledgement would end the hug. “Okay, so…”

“I will stay the night,” Wanda said, finally pulling back, “if that’s all right.”

“No argument here, although I would tell Sam if I were you. He’ll be thrilled to plan out a multi-course meal for someone other than Steve and I.”

Less than ten minutes later, Sam and Wanda were in the jeep, heading to the market. Steve wrapped an arm around Natasha’s midsection as he dipped his head into the crook of her neck. “We’re all alone for an hour.”

Much as she wanted to drag him upstairs to bed, she turned in his arms instead. “Don’t listen to Sam.”

“Which part? He may be teasing us, but I think he really does like Maria.”

She was surprised that he wasn’t more focused on the suggestion of marriage, but did her best not to let it show. “Hey, I’m not the one who’s consistently vetoed letting Maria come here. Or even setting up a little vacation. The Greek isles are very nice this time of year and I happen to know where we might get a secluded villa.” She pecked his lips. “Just something to consider.”

He rested his forehead against hers. “Guess we’ll have to start updating Wanda about our locations.”

“You can’t just work and work without an occasional break, even if the work never stops.”

He didn’t reply, but grasped her hand and led her upstairs. They still had fifty-three minutes, at least.


	13. T-minus 249 Days

Steve crawled behind the carcass of an ancient bombed out tank, pained but thankful that it had been him who took the first major hits of the team’s career as Rogue Avengers. Strangely, he recognized the tank as a repurposed World War II era M4 Sherman. He hadn’t realized any had made it to the Pacific theater, but he supposed there had been plenty of history following his crash in the Arctic. He vaguely surmised that they weren’t fighting the most well-equipped force if their defenses consisted of 70-year-old tanks, but he had more important concerns at the moment. Clutching his stomach, he tried to sit up.

Oh. This wasn’t good. Ouch.

He leaned against the rotting treads and pressed his hands over the source of the bleeding. He’d been anticipating a serious injury to one of them since they’d gone back into the field, but he had been dreading that it would happen to Natasha or Sam. At least Steve had his serum to ensure minimal bleeding and quick healing; he could walk off hits that would fell anyone else.

This particular hit to his abdomen was still proving pretty painful and debilitating at the moment. He was supposed to be rushing the Abu Sayyaf bunker on Basilan in the Philippines, but he just didn’t have the energy. He managed to struggle to his knees and raise his weapon, a reliable Kalashnikov that Natasha had given him, to provide cover fire as she led a group of local police through the bunker entrance. Sam was still overhead, taking out targets and calling out enemy positions.

He gasped as he sank back down into the mud, but he didn’t call out for help. He focused on his breathing. In, out. In, out. Damn, it hurt. In… “Holy…f…”

“Language!” Maria Hill cried out as she appeared and pressed a gauze pad against his wound. She had arranged  cooperation between the team and local elements after Fury had planned the mission. “Captain America has a reputation to uphold.”

He sucked in a breath as she poured a whitish powder over his wound. “And how many people are recording this channel?”

“Hey, we’re secure. I’m just continuing the meme. Well, it’s probably more of an inside joke but…” She slid her hand under his suit to place another gauze pad that she subsequently taped down. “If you wanna argue with Natasha when she comes out, breathing heavily and soaked with the blood of her enemies…”

Steve managed a chocked laugh. “You sound like Thor.”

“Yeah, because _that’s_ a bad guy to sound like.” Maria continued dressing his wound, though she did take a moment to pop up over the tank to lay down a burst of cover fire from his Kalashnikov. When she ducked back down, she said, “The hammer might come in handy right now, but that’s a nice gun.”

“Nat gave it to me.” He sucked in another breath as she wrapped a layer of gauze tightly around him. If Natasha couldn’t be here with him, he supposed that Maria wasn’t a horrible substitute. He glanced down at the Kalashnikov she was still holding in the hand she wasn’t using to bandage him. “She said it’s less likely to seize up than an M-4. No idea if that’s true, but it’s been pretty reliable.”

“It _is_ a good weapon,” Maria muttered as she ducked behind the tank after a quick look at the situation. “Got a few more clips?”

He tossed the ammo to her, not concerned about the request. 21st century women had proven themselves perfectly capable of handling modern weapons in his experience. He hoped the Army was similarly staffed. He still missed his shield. “Update?”

“I’m not Facebook, Steve.”

“Right, I just…”

“Relax. Alpha squad is secure inside the bunker.” She plugged her ear to isolate her earpiece; she was linked to the general chatter rather than the Avengers’ specific one. “And Bravo squad is in the ventilation shaft. I’d sit the rest of this one out if I were you, Cap.”

He made a halfhearted effort to get to his feet to get a glimpse over the tank, but otherwise conceded to Maria’s advice. He barely managed to get a line of sight over the rusted metal before falling back to earth, anyway. He held an arm firmly against his bandaged stomach. “So, are we…can we get out of here?”

“Patience.” She murmured a few clear instructions into her comms before adding something nonsensical about the eagle being grounded. Steve frowned at the obvious coded language. Maria simply shrugged a shoulder. “Not like anyone else knows you’re here.”

“Then you’re sure no one is listening in on this channel?”

“Like I said, it’s…” She suddenly popped up and fired a burst from the Kalashnikov as clods of dirt sprayed them. “Damn mortars.”

“Are we in range?”

“If you want to make a run, you can lean on me.”

“How many rounds do we have left?”

She tossed away a clip as she snapped another into place. “One more after this one.”

He calculated the odds in his head. Sixty rounds against who knew how many assailants, assuming they were still capable of turning their fire outward. “Where’s Natasha?”

“Still inside.” She held her hand over her ear for a moment. “Yeah, she’s scaring the locals at the moment. No count on how many noses she’s collected, but…” She glanced up at Steve. “That was a joke. Natasha is fine.”

“Right.” He had a hard time imagining Natasha taking grotesque trophies, but he didn’t know much about their adversaries and what they might find most disturbing. Natasha certainly wasn’t above psychological warfare. He pushed the thought out of his head. “We should scram, right?”

“On three.” Maria hooked an arm around him. “One…two…three!”

He managed to sprint across the still-active artillery field with her in under ten seconds. His breath was totally gone when he collapsed into the shallow trench that marked the safe zone. He turned to look at her. “You okay?”

“No one shot me.”

He chuckled. “How’s the mission?”

“Successful. Computers and documents are secured. Nick’s happy.” She paused as she covered her ear again. “He wants me to tell you that he’s satisfied, not happy. Also, that he demands, not wants that correction.”

Steve didn’t reply, focusing on his breathing again as medics swarmed around him. He prayed he wasn’t going to need the advanced medicine of Wakanda.

* * *

Steve opened his eyes in a hospital room, though he had no idea where this particular room was located. After a moment, he turned his head to see Sam dozing in a chair beside his bed. He had to be safe if Sam was napping in his room and Natasha wasn’t even there. Steve had to smile as he recognized the _Troubleman_ soundtrack playing in the background. He gingerly pushed himself up in his bed, doing his best not to dislodge any of the tubes currently linked to his veins.

A tall Asian man in light blue scrubs walked into the room, only to pause dramatically when he noticed that Steve was conscious. “Hello. You are awake. I will…the doctor!” The man fled before Steve could say anything.

He tried to swat at Sam, but his friend was too far away to reach. Steve realized how medicated he still was as his well-aimed tissue bombs failed to even hit Sam. He was still pitching airballs when a familiar woman appeared and said, “Captain, there is no need to continue your offensive!”

His eyeballs felt slow as he rotated them to take her in. She was wearing the same blue scrubs he remembered her wearing the last time he’d seen her, _sans_ the blood. “Dr. Cho?”

“You are safe at my rebuilt clinic in Seoul.” Dr. Helen Cho approached him slowly, keeping her hands up. “Do you remember me?”

“Of course. You…you’re a good doctor.”

“Then you will calm down?”

He suddenly realized that he was yanking an IV from his arm. “Oh. Sorry.”

“It’s okay, Captain.” Dr. Cho carefully made sure the line was patent. “We had to give you some heavy sedatives and analgesics to ensure you would remain anesthetized, but you are rapidly metabolizing them. Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.”

“I…” It took a moment for him to realize he needed to acknowledge the situation. Also that he was receiving adequate medical care. “So…I’m okay?”

“Of course,” Dr. Cho assured him. “Agent Hill contacted me to ask if we could provide medical attention, and I didn’t hesitate.” She moved a screen so he could see a display of his wounds. “You were hit by two high caliber rounds, likely from a machine gun, but we were able to repair the damage in spite of the UN confiscating my most effective devices.”

“Uh…sorry?”

“We are still doing cutting-edge research, in spite of the setbacks. We’ve moved on to pure biological scaffolding rather than the polymer based…”

“Where’s Natasha?”

Dr. Cho rolled her eyes at his interruption of her science talk, but replied, “Agent Romanoff is having some superficial wounds treated, as both she and Mr. Wilson refused treatment until you were stabilized.”

Much as he appreciated the esprit de corps, he was going to have to talk to Natasha and Sam about tending to their own needs in the future. “Right. And Agent Hill?”

“Already gone. She wanted to leave before your whereabouts could be tracked. My staff’s discretion is assured. Your jet is cloaked on our helipad when you’re ready to go.”

“Dr. Cho…” He took a deep breath and summoned his best Captain America voice. “Dr. Cho, I’m truly appreciative that you treated us in spite of the professional damage the Avengers caused to both you personally and your clinic and I…”

“Blah, blah, blah,” Sam interrupted in a growly mumble.

Dr. Cho smiled. “As your friend so eloquently said, Captain, it is no trouble. Feel free to return if you are in need of medical care at any point in the future.” She tapped something on the screen still displaying his scans before turning it off. “It is good to see you. And better to know you are still doing your best for the world.”

She disappeared through the door before he could answer. Sam was suddenly leaning into his face. “S’up, Cap?”

“Are you okay?”

“Right as…wet sky drops. Yeah.” Sam’s eyes didn’t seem to be focusing quite right. “You hearin’ Marvin?”

“Yes. I remember. _Troubleman_.”

“Damn right.” He burst into song, “Start all over and win again…”

“Sam!” Natasha appeared in the doorway, already swaying in time to the music. “They gave you painkillers too?”

“Hell yeah. May I have this dance?”

Steve had to laugh as he watched Natasha and Sam awkwardly come together, though he did wonder if he would be the one piloting the quinjet home as the two danced in the background.


	14. T-minus 223 Days

“I’m sorry, but are we on some kind of strict toothpaste rations I didn’t know about?”

Sam rolled his eyes as Natasha’s voice became clearly audible through his bedroom door. She and Steve had been having one of their infrequent petty domestic squabbles for the past few minutes, but when the shouting got loud enough for Sam to hear details, he took it as his cue to put on his noise cancelling headphones. They were a fancy German brand that Natasha had given him after learning their rooms shared at wall at the house in the Netherlands. The headphones were most likely intended to block out _other_ sounds she and Steve might be making, but they did the trick during fights, too; they also produced exceptional bass. Sam scrolled through his playlists until he found a nice soul-heavy one, settling down into his pillows as he flipped through the new shellfish cookbook he’d picked up when they’d been in Valencia last week on a surveillance mission that hadn’t gone anywhere.

A few minutes later, he was getting into a recipe for paella as The Temptations were telling him to “get ready, ‘cause here I come,” when Steve barged into his room, brandishing a sad, flattened tube of toothpaste. Sam sighed, watching Steve’s lips move for a moment before removing his headphones.

“…at least two or three more days!” Steve pushed the tube at Sam. “See? It’s wasteful not to use it all!”

Sam accepted the tube, but had no idea what he was expected to do with it. “Uh…”

“It’s not wasteful if you can only get the last bit out via steamroller intervention,” Natasha stated, saving him as she leaned against the doorframe. “Besides, Sam doesn’t care and, even if he did, he’s smart enough not to take sides.”

Ignoring that implied caveat that he’d be on her side if he were taking sides, Sam nodded in agreement. “Yeah, this one is all you guys.” He handed the empty tube back to Steve. “‘Sides, I got my own toothpaste.”

Steve began a protest, “But…”

“Sorry,” Natasha interrupted as she grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the room. He was still trying to explain why they should be conserving Colgate.

Sam had noticed the two had these little nitpicky fights periodically. He wasn’t sure if they were doing it consciously – or at least if Steve was doing it consciously, because Natasha knew exactly what she was doing – but it served as an oddly healthy form of expression, dispelling any tension that naturally occurred from living as fugitives. Sam sighed and put his headphones back on just in time for Marvin Gaye – ‘Let’s Get It On.’ Yeah, he did not need that mental image, regardless of how the supercouple’s argument was guaranteed to end. He clicked ahead to the next song. Eventually, he dozed off to the sounds of the Jackson 5 singing about how blending mussels, shrimp and lobster with rice and herbs was easy as ‘ABC.’

* * *

The next day, after a day trip to the market that hadn’t resulted in enough fresh seafood to make the ideal paella, Sam was making a beef recipe he’d gotten from the wife of the butcher in town. He tried to think happy thoughts as he carefully chopped onions, but not even the thought of going home for a traditional Thanksgiving with all of his Mom’s home cooking could stop the tears.

Well…maybe that wasn’t all the onions’ fault.

Blinking rapidly, he glanced over at the living room where Steve was stretched out, napping on the couch. Natasha was asleep on top of him, her head tucked under his chin. The previous day’s fight about toothpaste had clearly been resolved, just as Sam had predicted and thankfully missed courtesy of his headphones. The two of them were good about confining all sexual activity to the bedroom, but Sam wondered if he should add a rider about the necessity of concealing all sickeningly cute behavior. They looked like some damn Instagram feed of a perfect couple. He sighed as his eyes continued to sting and tear.

He was about to put his saddest playlist on the stereo, which began with Roberta Flack killing him softly and went downhill from there, when the doorbell rang. Although both Steve and Natasha woke at the sound, Sam was the first to the front door. He knew it couldn’t be Wanda, because she didn’t ring the bell, and it couldn’t be a package delivery, because they never got anything, but…

“Maria!” He was suddenly aware that both his eyes and nose were dripping. He couldn’t be sure that the hand he swiped over his face improved or worsened the problem, but at least she didn’t disappear from the front stoop. He was going to need a playlist that opened with Hot Chocolate. He managed not to call her a sexy thing and leaned against the doorframe. “Uh…hey.”

“Hey.” She looked over his shoulder for a moment before turning her gaze back to his face. “So, can I come in?”

“What? Oh, sure! Yeah, of course. I was just…I mean, the onions…” He stepped aside to let her step in and wiped his face again to find a disturbing amount of moisture on his hand. He rubbed it on his pants as he walked back to the kitchen, saying, “I was making dinner and chopping onions, so…”

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she said smoothly as she walked over to the refrigerator and took out a glass bottle of Coca-Cola, the only type of soda Steve allowed in the house, in spite of Sam’s insistence on New Orleans’ own Big Shot sodas or Natasha’s weird infatuation with lemon squash. Maria used a penknife to snap the cap off her Coke before settling into a chair at the kitchen table. She glanced at the living room before turning her attention back to Sam. “Are they going to get up?”

Natasha abruptly stood from her position atop Steve. “Sorry. I had to pinch him into submission when he realized you were here.”

“Ow,” Steve muttered, surreptitiously rubbing the crease of his thigh. Sympathetic for the moment, Sam returned to his onions. He knew that he hadn’t agreed to give out the address of their safe house, and it was unlikely Steve had done so. Sam trusted Natasha, but there was always a chance that she’d gone behind their backs. He couldn’t really be mad about it when the result was Maria being right there at the kitchen table, drinking a Coke.

Neither Natasha nor Maria seemed disconcerted about the situation. Natasha got herself a glass of water before sitting down. “So, if we skip the part about you not being invited or given the coordinates or directions to get here,” she paused to shoot a significant look at Steve, who was still nursing his pinches, “what brings you to our humble abode?”

“Nick has a US-based mission he didn’t think should be discussed anywhere but in person.” Maria pulled a file folder from the backpack she’d set on the floor. “It looks like the main North American Hydra base. Still operational, if you had to ask.” Sam drifted over from his fully chopped onions to glance at the map, which displayed a section of northern Ohio. Maria went on, “It’s in what looks like an abandoned fallout shelter that’s not on any official maps in Cleveland, about three blocks from University Circle. The plan is to get you in and out on public works trucks, since the entrance we’ve surveilled is at a manhole on Euclid.”

“Must you always be sending me into a sewer?” Natasha asked in a long-suffering way.

“If you’d rather shoot your way in through the door beneath Case Western…”

“University-sponsored terrorists?”

“From what we can tell, it’s nothing to do with CWRU. What there _is_ is a janitor whose parents suddenly emigrated from Germany in the late 40’s under questionable circumstances.” She pushed two older headshots along with a more recent photo across the table. “Henrich and Ludgarda Fischer consistently denied any Nazi sympathies, but there’s some evidence that both were aligned with the nuclear program before they relocated. Henrich even taught physics for a while.”

“I’m getting really tired of dealing with the Paperclip fallout,” Natasha murmured, picking up the more recent picture.

Sam leaned over her shoulder to get a glance at the bald, scowling man. “So what’s sonny boy’s deal?”

“Fredrich,” Maria corrected. “Born in Cleveland in ’49. From what we can gather, he was never the brightest bulb and his father got him the custodial job at the university, where he’s worked since ‘58. He spends a suspicious amount of time in the basement of Tomlinson Hall, like he’s guarding something. There have also periodically been an oddly high number of building inspectors that he’s led down there.”

“Base entrance,” Steve rumbled as he sat up on the couch, combing his fingers through both his beard and his hair; Sam pointedly ignored Natasha’s audible intake of breath as he did so. “When do we leave?”

Maria was unperturbed by the sudden focus on Steve’s assorted hair. “Not until after dinner, if the smell from whatever Sam has simmering on the stove is any indication.”

Sam suddenly remembered that he was cooking a completely unimpressive braised beef and onion gravy dish with green beans that no one would write home about. Hell, he hadn’t even made a dessert! This _would_ be the totally boring meal Maria showed up for! He was still lost as he complained under his breath, “So this is the only thing I’m gonna be cooking for you?”

“I’m sure you can do something special if Steve agrees to have Maria over again,” Natasha replied, “especially since she’s proven she can get here without our prior agreement.”

Steve grumbled, but still flinched away when she made a pinching motion toward him as he sat down beside her. After finishing off her glass of water, he asked, “What’s the mission objective?”

“We need intel if we want to finish Hydra off globally,” Maria said. “You’re certainly welcome to deal with any operatives you find as you see fit, but keep it inside the base. I don’t suppose I have to remind you that you’re still fugitives or about what happened when you encountered Crossbones in Lagos…”

“Rumlow,” Steve spat before Sam could. When he looked up again from stirring his onions into his gravy, he noted that Natasha looked equally angered by the mention. Thank God Wanda wasn’t home. Steve continued, “There was never any evidence he was communicating with anyone Stateside.”

“Or it was just that well concealed,” Maria pushed, not getting agitated about the pushback as she sipped her soda. “Besides, even if Rumlow wasn’t in contact with this base, isn’t it worthwhile to handle it?”

Although Steve seemed ready to agree, Natasha shoved his shoulder gently. “Let’s find out exactly what we’re dealing with. What do we have going in? Blueprints?”

Maria waved her hand and a holographic display of the base and related structures appeared on the table from her tablet. “We mapped it out with the latest in ground-penetrating radar.” A star appeared where she pointed at a surface street. “Access is here. Once you’re underground, you just proceed two-hundred yards east to the server room.”

“They’re not protecting their data?”

“They haven’t addressed _this_ particular access point.”

Natasha groaned. “And ‘access point’ means limited diameter.” She pointed to a  junction on the holographic map. “Steve’s shoulders aren’t going through there, are they?”

“Not even a little,” Maria confirmed. “But I’m sure he’ll be waiting in the tunnel so you can hand him any documents you retrieve.”

“What about the data?”

“You say that like you can’t fit USB drives in your imaginary pockets.”

As Sam had yet to hear anything about aerial operations, he asked, “Your catsuit has pockets?”

“Focus on the stovetop,” Natasha shot back. She made a hand motion as if she were pushing the plans aside. “We’re just doing a pinch and not clearing the facility?”

Maria waved her hand to pull up a more detailed schematic. “I’ve got more maps if you want to…”

“Yeah,” Steve replied, already staring at the Hydra base and pointing at key positions. “If Nat can get here…”

“…we can set charges to collapse the rest of the complex,” Natasha finished, picking up on his plan before he finished describing it. “But will that compromise anything aboveground?”

“If you set charges here,” Maria pointed out a particular position, “and here, you should be fine. It should collapse the base but take advantage of the extra supports Hydra put in place to ensure the base wouldn’t collapse under the street and other buildings.”

Sam suddenly realized that he wasn’t needed on this mission, on which Captain America and the Black Widow were casually planning an implosion under a major American city. He briefly wondered why that didn’t seem odd to him, but he shrugged his shoulders the way he would to retract his wings and turned his attention back to the beef stewing in gravy. If no one need the Falcon, he could at least make a meal the team would remember. He continued prepping the food with a singular focus until Maria practically shouted, “Sam!”

“Huh?’

“Are you okay with handling the Tomlinson exit with no backup?”

He shook his head to clear the cobwebs and onions. “The…what?”

“The exit from the Hydra base into the university. It might get hairy if there’s an evacuation from the base.”

“Oh, yeah. I think I’m well-armed to deal with some Hydra goons.”

“Your arms do look more impressive than I remember,” she replied with a coy look at him that nearly made him drop his spoon in the pot. “Of course, they’ve still got nothing on your thighs.”

This time Sam did drop his spoon in the pot and he didn’t even care. He spun on his heel and leaned against the counter. “Well, if you wanna talk legs…” He trailed off and glanced pointedly to where hers were hidden under the table. “Maybe compare a little.”

To his surprise, Steve stage-whispered, “Ugh, is that how we look?”

“No, you’re much worse at flirting.” Natasha patted his cheek. “So, getting back to business, dinner then mission, right? And Maria gets to come back to continue this little scene after we’re done.”

Sam nodded eagerly, though it took a little more effort to break eye-contact with Maria. They’d definitely be getting back to this.

 


	15. T-minus 190 Days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Romanogers sex? Yaas!

Natasha woke slowly in her bed in Châtelet and opened her eyes only with significant effort. Her right eye didn’t even open all the way, having swelled to a small slit. She was very sore all over from the bruises that covered her from head to toe. After the successful mission in Cleveland, Fury had been eager to start using the Rogue Avengers more often in the US. Unfortunately, their latest mission, dismantling a violent new white supremacist militia in Montana that had acquired some disturbingly Hydra-like weapons, had been interrupted by an unexpected FBI intervention. What should have been a simple takedown of disorganized militiamen with weapons they couldn’t quite handle had turned into a three-way brawl during which she, Steve and Sam had tried to take on all comers without distributing any mortal wounds. The militia and federal agents hadn’t been quite so polite with their counterattacks.

They’d eventually neutralized the militia, destroyed their armory and escaped from authorities with no serious, debilitating injuries, but her aching body didn’t feel the victory at this moment. She knew Sam was probably suffering just as much as she was, even if Steve’s bruises, visible on the arm draped around her waist as he spooned her while they slept, were already fading.

As she snuggled against him, she realized that he felt even warmer than usual as he held her, his metabolism no doubt working overtime to heal him. She would have been more jealous if the heat wasn’t so soothing to her own sore muscles. She let out a happy sigh that sounded more like a groan, which caused him to shift slightly.

“You okay?” he mumbled, still half-asleep.

“Not bad. Glad we bought all that Tylenol when we stopped at Costco, I guess.” She actually would have liked something stronger, but there was no need to dull herself with something overly strong. She really just needed to take the edge off her pain so she could function somewhat normally until she’d healed. At least they’d also managed to buy enough Coke and Cheerios to satisfy his appetite. She swallowed her own aches as she replied, “I wish we hadn’t had to go so easy on those guys.”

“You thought that was easy?” His arm tightened around her waist, though he didn’t exert any pressure on her bruises. “Because I punched a whole lot of people and got punched more times than I’d prefer.”

“Easy for _them_ ,” she amended. There would have been a lot of fatalities on the militia’s and FBI’s parts if they had been less conscious of taking prisoners and not killing federal agents. “At least Fury promised not to contact us for a few weeks. We could use a break."

He nuzzled his agreement into the back of her neck. “Should we do something special next week?”

“Staycation sex? Unless you’ve reconsidered the idea of a retreat on a Mediterranean beach.”

“Sounds great either way, but I was actually thinking about our anniversary.”

“Oh.” She thought back a moment to her appearance at the safe house in Holland. Her quick calculation of dates resulted in an odd revelation. She and Steve were just a week away from their first anniversary as a couple. Damn. She tried to nod casually into her pillow. “Wow. Hard to believe it’s really been a year.”

“Maybe.” He nipped her earlobe with his lips. “Guess I shouldn’t admit to counting the days on the calendar to plan something special.”

“You’re saying tempus non fugit?”

He chuckled as he pressed his lips just under her ear. “I only know Church Latin. Pater noster, qui es in caelis, and so on. It’s mostly knowing what to say at the right time. Whole mass used to be in Latin. You just learned the thing and said it so you didn’t have to admit you’d been blasphemous in confession.”

“Hmm,” she hummed quietly, just enjoying her time in his arms. She was fairly well educated about most religious traditions as part of her training, but she’d never actually had any religious experiences that didn’t also involve working. Steve had made a few Sunday trips to the nearby Catholic church, inviting her to come with him but never pushing. She hadn’t ever considered that he was being sincere about a faith she only recognized as an intellectual exercise, so she covered her discomfort with a joke, “Guess you could always teach Sam to say Ave Maria whenever she walks through the door.”

“I’m sure he’s got that covered.” He kissed down her neck to her shoulder, dragging his lips along her skin as he moved. “I love you, Nat.”

“Love you, too,” she murmured, trying not to focus on her sore body, still pressed against Steve’s. It was always a question of desire versus…more desire. There was no drop-off from how she usually felt about him in spite of her injuries. She could feel his erection against the cleft of her buttocks, even if he wasn’t trying to encourage her into anything more than cuddling. He was far too solicitous sometimes.

In spite of her soreness, she reached behind her to grasp him. He immediately covered her hand with his. “Sorry. It just happened. I know you’re probably not in the mood.” She stopped him from turning away and he shivered as she stroked him, pressing his dick against her body to increase his sensation. “Oh, Nat…”

“Y’know, for a guy who wants to celebrate our first year together, you’re still not so great at predicting my mood.” She turned to kiss him over her shoulder, continuing to stroke him. “Guess you need more practice.”

“How’s the rest of our lives sound?”

Biting back her deeply ingrained reflex to flee such a suggestion, she took a deep breath. She realized she wasn’t actually afraid of this commitment, this admission that she was part of something bigger than just herself. She gave him a long kiss as she continued to stroke him. “Hope that’s long enough.”

“You sayin’ we should take advantage of right now?” he rumbled into her ear, his hand slipping between her legs to touch her.

“I’m not moving from this position,” she whispered back to him, lazily lifting her leg to give him access. He obligingly arranged himself, wrapping his other arm around her so he could hold her to his chest. His hard cock made a few thrusts between her thighs before he pushed into her. He began a slow, gentle rhythm from behind while continuing his caresses from the front. She moaned in approval.

“Tell me if I hurt you.”

“You’re not.” She figured a little white lie wasn’t totally uncalled for. The truth was that her injuries ached dully even simply lying in bed, so any movement just increased that pain. Of course, if she told him that, he’d stop and she _did not_ want to stop. It wasn’t such a problem as the shivers of pleasure ran through her as he kept up his measured pace, now pressing harder against her clit in rhythm with his thrusts. She continued making soft sounds of satisfaction and encouragement as the heat in her belly built.

She liked this angle, feeling him inside her differently. He usually wanted to be face to face as they made love, so she hadn’t really pushed him into trying what he seemed to consider more adventurous positions. She almost giggled as she remembered his horrified expression when she’d tried to tempt him from her hands and knees – _Not like that, Nat! I can’t even see you!_ They could ease back into that if he approved of this position, maybe involve a mirror. Even if she couldn’t ever imagine him bending her over a table and just having her, she could still expand his horizons.

She refocused on her body for the moment, thoroughly enjoying their current position. He continued his slow rhythm, now with his face buried in her hair. “You smell amazing.”

“Really? That’s what you’re – ooh! – noticing right now?”

“Love you. Love everything about you.”

“I know.” She reached behind her to pull him down into a kiss. With her lips still against his, she ordered, “Harder. You won’t hurt me.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

The sudden increase of his long thrusts had her head spinning. “Oh, Steve…just like that.”

“You still…smell…amazing,” he got out between grunts of effort. “Please tell me you’re close.”

“Getting there.” She pushed her hips back to meet him, searching for the little extra she needed. “Shouldn’t have warmed you up, I guess.”

He groaned in response, rubbing her clit with renewed vigor and gently pinching her nipple with his other hand. His mouth descended her neck as he began to nip softly at her skin. God, everything was so…so… His thrusts suddenly becoming erratic. “Oh, God, you gotta…I can’t…

“Let it go,” she assured him, her orgasm right on the edge of bursting through her. It arrived just as he sagged and started apologizing for having his own first. She interrupted him as she cried out, “Steve!”

He immediately responded, resuming his touches and thrusts until she told him it was enough. “Whoa.” He dropped a kiss on her shoulder. “That was…you really are amazing.”

“You always say that after sex,” she replied coyly, although she could feel her cheeks coloring as she came back to Earth. “You know you don’t have to convince me anything, right?

“It’s always true. After sex, before sex, while you’re sleeping, when you punch people, when you’re arguing with Sam, when you’re sitting and reading, when you…”

“Stop!” she cried with a laugh, turning in his arms to face him properly. He had softened enough by then to barely notice the change inside her. Her lips found his for a long moment. “So, we were planning our anniversary?”

“Well, you’ve been going on about that Greek island villa, so I thought…if it’s available…we could go. Invite Sam and Maria and…” He trailed off as she pressed her finger to his lips.

“How about we let Sam invite Maria here, or a hotel in Paris or Rome or Saint-Tropez, while you and I go to that isolated villa that I’m pretty sure I can get on short notice.”

“Exactly who is your real estate contact?”

“Let’s just say I’m in the good books of a person who might be a Rothschild. And before you regurgitate some stupid internet conspiracy theory, I trust him with my life and he’s never let me down.”

His lips pursed around her finger, still pressed against his. “I was just gonna ask if they make wine. I just remember that Howard had a thing for something called Château Lafite Rothschild during the War. He got all excited when we brought back a few cases of German intel that had some wine bottles in it.”

“Tony’s dad?” she replied after a moment of confusion. She still found it strange that Steve had been a contemporary of Tony’s father when she already thought of Tony as an extremely overage frat boy. Maybe some kind of alum who donated generously to the chapter in exchange for invites to the parties where he propositioned naïve young coeds to… She shut down that line of thought as she realized Steve was looking upset. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned him.”

“No, it’s not that. I just…I sent him a phone. I don’t know if I told you about that.” He hadn’t, but she didn’t mention it; at least it explained the phone he always carried around. After a pause he went on, “Nothing fancy, just a flip phone that’s probably years out of date. Not like ours are, but…” He buried his face in her neck again for a moment. “I actually like the old phone you gave me. It feels solid. Real.”

She ran her hand along his jaw, raising his head so she could meet his eyes. “He’ll call eventually.”

“Maybe. But he didn’t call after the Turkish op. Or Pakistan. Or Cleveland. Or any one of a dozen missions we’ve clearly been involved with that have been all over the news.” He sighed and ducked back into her neck. “He has to know that we’re getting back out there. That we’re doing the right thing.”

“I’m sure he does,” she replied. “They’ve been on the news too.”

Steve didn’t emerge from the safety of her embrace. “’m glad Rhodey can walk again. Never wanted anyone to get hurt.”

“Y’know, Shuri might have some ideas about his spinal injury.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t. I don’t want to… I told him I’d be there if he needs me, but I didn’t…”

“Shh. You served an underhand lob. He can return it if he wants.”

“Are we talking about tennis?”

“Do you care?”

“Guess not.”

Natasha pulled him against her, grasping his muscular ass in a handful. “Good.”


	16. T-minus 161 Days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Sorry, but I went on vacation and didn't tell you. Now I'm back and ready to fic at you!

Steve frowned at the map of southern France that Natasha had pulled up on her tablet. As she zoomed in on the satellite photos, the new property she was suggesting they move to came into focus. It…it was a house. It was large and isolated and had a big barn and some gardens and…it was not all that different from their current home. There was a pen for small animals and maybe an orchard, but nothing else that really stood out. He squinted at the picture, trying to differentiate anything that might be an improvement from their current location, but there was nothing. Unless…was that a vineyard? Were they going to be making Avengers’ wine?

Natasha lost her patience and swept the image aside with a flick of her hand, demanding, “Well?”

“It’s just another house.”

“I know, but do you think it looks like a good choice for our move?”

“Hey, we haven’t made any decisions about moving yet.” They’d been through the same argument a few months before, with no set timetable for actually leaving their current safe house. “There’s no chatter that indicates anyone we don’t trust knows where we are. Why do we even have to move?”

She frowned right back at him. “Because we’ve been here over ten months already. Because your French is good and Sam’s is decent.”

“Gee, thanks,” Sam interjected from his usual spot in front of the stove. He was casually using a spatula to push something around in a pan. It smelled absolutely delicious. “Don’t suppose I get any input on moving to this place?”

“Yeah, Sam’s opinion counts. And what about Wanda?” Steve added.

“She hasn’t been here in over four months.”

The information was alarming – Steve hadn’t realized it had been so long since they’d seen Wanda, but he couldn’t find any reason to doubt Natasha’s calculation – but, considering they still heard from her regularly, he pressed on, “I still haven’t heard a good reason to move again.”

Natasha simply went on, “Because I couldn’t find a place in Switzerland with space for the jet. Because Toulouse is a fair sized metropolitan area with anything we might need. It’s also home to the French aerospace industry, so if we need to repair the jet, we’ve got spare parts in our backyard.”

“You don’t shit where you eat.”

“You say that like I’m not a master spy, Sam.”

“Yeah, well, I’m with Steve on this one.” He deftly flipped a frying pan to…jumble the things in it to…make them more delicious? Steve had never taken to cooking the way that Sam had and had to refocus from the tempting smell as his friend continued, “I like it here. I know which butcher has the best meat and where to go for the freshest vegetables and who gets the early seafood deliveries. Oh, and I just made friends with that vineyard owner where they make that incredible Chardonnay that everyone likes.”

“Why are you arguing food and wine when that’s the first thing everyone thinks of when they think of France? We’d be moving to the chef’s mothership!”

“Did I _not_ mention my quality local boucherie?”

“You’re not thinking about the big picture.” Natasha suddenly stood from her seat at the table and stalked to the window in the living room that provided the best view of the main approach to the house. “I’m just trying to keep us safe and we’ve already stayed too long if we’re making local connections.”

Steve exchanged a dubious look with Sam before walking over to Natasha. He took a deep breath, trying to focus on the scent of whatever Sam was cooking but failing as he nuzzled into her hair, his arms wrapping around her waist. “Why are you worried? Is there any concrete evidence that anyone knows where we’re living?”

“Was there concrete evidence in the forty-eight hours before SHIELD went to shit?”

“If we’d been looking in the right places…”

“Like we found at Camp Lehigh?” Natasha’s voice held a warning, which he forced himself to ignore. He and Sam had had many conversations on that very topic while they’d been searching for Bucky after the helicarrier battle – _How did they hide it? What were the warning signs? WHY didn’t you know?_

Steve pushed those doubts away. He liked this house. He liked having a home base, a headquarters he could rely on returning to. There was no real reason to move.  His thoughts were again clouded by her natural perfume as he inhaled before stating, “If something happens here, we can handle it. And if our intel is sound, we’ll know it’s coming and we can get out. Do we really have to leave?”

“Don’t you want us to be safe?”

“Nat, we’re at risk just being us, and we still decided to get back out there, to put ourselves in the public eye to some degree. We know it’s not guaranteed, but we’re okay for now. Aren’t we?”

She shook out of his embrace, pacing a path through the living room and back several times before finally saying, “We’re too comfortable here. Anyone playing a long game has us dead to rights.”

“And you think any of them have eyes on us?”

“It’s only a matter of time. Fury knows where we are and Maria has actually been here. We’ve been to nearly every shop in town, so we’ve probably been recognized by multiple people…”

“And none of them has ratted us out!” Sam called from the kitchen.

“Regardless, we haven’t put any contingencies in place to ensure they don’t.”

“Hey, I _know_ you didn’t just obliquely threaten Pierre or Marie or Loїc…”

 “Nat…”

She brushed past Steve’s attempt to hug her as she walked toward the door. “I’m going for a ride on your stupid scooter.”

Bereft of any solution that didn’t involve physically restraining her, he let his hand drop as she left the house and motored off on his Vespa. She wasn’t even wearing the helmet! He caught himself before running after her. “This…I can’t…Sam?”

“Hey, don’t freak out.” Sam deftly slid the contents of his pan onto a plate that he set on the table. “Sit and have a bite.”

“But Nat…”

“She’ll be back. It’s not like she just broke up with you and stole your Vespa, so chill.” Steve reluctantly sat at the table as Sam settled before his own plate and went on, “See, your girl has issues with settling down, so she’s looking for a way out that lets her stay with you and maintain control of the environment.” It was true that Natasha had left in the middle of arguing that they consider a move to a new property, as they’d been at the current one in Châtelet for over ten months. Neither Steve nor Sam wanted to move and they’d spent the afternoon and evening fighting about the place she’d found. “You just gotta convince her that she can have you _and_ our house here at the same time and still be happy. I bet no frustrated SHIELD therapist ever tried that line on her before.”

“Thanks,” Steve grumbled into his plate, shoving a forkful into his mouth as he mulled over the situation. Natasha had argued passionately about the need to move to a new location, but he just hadn’t been convinced that her abundance of caution was warranted. As he chewed, he went over all the intel they’d been monitoring recently and didn’t remember any red flags regarding their location.  He was on his third bite before he registered how delicious whatever Sam had made was. He swallowed before asking, “Holy…Sam, what is this?”

“Ratatouille. Like the Disney flick, but without the rodent chef. You like it?”

“It…it’s like something my mom might have made!” He savored another bite, a century disappearing as he chewed. He could almost taste the kitchen in the small Brooklyn apartment, simmering with the rare potato-free dish. “How have you not made this before?”

“Uh, guess I fell into the movie trap that it’s a peasant dish?”

“Well, I’m basically a peasant, so…” He smiled as another mouthful hit his taste buds. “Tastes like home.” As he swallowed, he opened his eyes and looked around the kitchen, then the living room. “We’re home here, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, I guess so. I mean, _I_ like it,” Sam concluded with a shrug.

“Then you think Nat’s just being paranoid.”

“Don’t put words in my mouth. I think she’s got good reasons not to trust anyone or anything, regardless of how trustworthy you and me are.” They both took bites and were quiet for a moment. “But,” Sam eventually continued, “I also think that you can get into the habit of not trusting anyone, ever, no matter what. We have to draw a line in the sand about Nat’s instincts versus ours. Do _you_ think we should move?”

“Not really. We haven’t had any problems here. I feel pretty safe.”

“Uh huh. And is ‘pretty safe’ enough?”

Steve bit his lip. “Whose side are you on?”

“I’m tryin’ to help you suss out your opinion, here. Do you think we’re compromised or not?”

He took a long moment to think about their current intel. Again. Sam refilled his plate in the time it took him to come to the conclusion, “Honestly? No.”

“Uh-huh. Me neither, no matter how many times Maria’s allowed to come for a sleepover.”

“Are you saying that while Nat and I were in Greece, you and Maria were up late watching movies and doing each other’s nails?”

Rather than responding with snark, Sam beamed at the dig. “I can’t even explain how much I love that you’ve picked up the girly sleepover cliché from the ’80s and ‘90s. Feels almost like your pop culture education has been successful.”

“Yeah, well, that’s been a team effort ever since New York.” An exhausted lunch in a damaged shawarma restaurant flash through Steve’s mind. It had been his first social outing since coming out of the ice and everyone had been too tired to really talk about anything beyond a concert poster on the wall regarding an appearance by a pitbull at Madison Square Garden being met with general derision; when Steve had attempted to defend the dog breed, he’d been roundly mocked for his ignorance by Tony and Clint while Bruce had spoken up for both him and the dogs. He could even picture Thor’s expression of good-natured confusion and Natasha’s smirk as she’d hummed something that sounded familiar from the radio. God, that had been so long ago.

He blinked down at his ratatouille, surprised by the burn of tears stinging his eyes. Shortly after that first team meal, he’d agreed to work for SHIELD and been partnered with Natasha, setting him on his current trajectory. He wouldn’t change a single thing, other than having her here at this moment.

Sam’s hand was suddenly on his shoulder, giving it a firm squeeze. “Hey, she’s just taking a minute to clear her head. She’ll be back in a bit. We’ll all talk about it and settle on something we can all agree on, okay?”

“I know. I just…we’ve already lost so much and I don’t want to lose…”

The sound of the Vespa’s motor interrupted him, prompting Sam to smile again. “See? She can’t keep herself away from you, dude. Go out there and settle up with your woman.”

Steve didn’t argue with Sam’s characterization of Natasha as he sprinted out the door. He caught her in his arms before she’d even put the scooter on its stand. “Nat, I…”

“No, I’m sorry. I’m being unreasonable and it isn’t fair to pull you into that.”

“But you’re trying to do what’s best for us and we should at least hear you out on your opinion about our security and…” The Vespa abruptly fell against the side of the Jeep with a disturbing clank. “Oh, shoot.”

“Just let it go,” she replied, her arms still wrapped around his neck. “Sorry I just took off. That was rude.”

“I think I may have eaten all of Sam’s ratatouille, so it’s probably an even exchange.”

“Steve…”

“I love you, Nat, and I trust you, but you have to start trusting me and Sam. If there’s any evidence that we’re in danger, we’ll pick up an move, but if there’s not…”

“I know. I know!” She suddenly buried her face in his chest. “I trust you. I know I don’t always show it, but I do. I love you and I should let that…there’s no reason that your gut feelings are less valid than mine.”

“Hey, we always…” he swallowed a lump in his throat as he realized they were arguing their own instincts. “I love you, too, Nat. Let’s just look at the facts we have and decide based on that, okay?”

“Guess that’s a challenge to be expected from people who haven’t always had the benefit of looking at the available evidence before making a decision, huh?”

“Yeah. So…”

“If Sam trusts you to be impartial as we review the intel, could we handle that while he cooks seconds?”

Steve nodded as they headed back into the house.


	17. T-minus 137 Days

Sam clenched his shoulders to withdraw his wings for a moment. He experienced freefall combined with temporary deafness in one ear following the concussion of the explosion he’d just avoided before spreading his wings again and aiming a perfect shot at the source of the missile. His comms, fortunately on the opposite side, crackled with Steve and Nat calling out positions to each other in the complex below, which was largely on fire. He shot up two more bad guys in a guard tower as he complained, “Yeah, I’m fine up here, even if that RPG nearly got me. Thanks for asking.”

“You realize we can see you flying around, right?” Natasha shot back. He wasn’t sure how she even had the breath for the comment when he spotted her cutting through a group of beefy thugs like they were made of paper, shock sticks flashing. Two whirling kicks later and she was the last person standing in the courtyard outside the low main building, which they’d been working toward.

Sam flew down and landed lightly a few feet from her. “Don’t s’pose we’ve figured out where these idiots are hiding the Death Star plans yet.”

“For the last time, it’s not a Death Star it’s…” She suddenly raised a pistol aimed directly at his face. Before he could duck or correct himself, she fired a single shot over his shoulder. He turned to see a man with a bazooka toppling over with a hole in his forehead.

“Damn, Nat. Warn a brother!”

She shrugged indifferently. “As I was saying, it’s a satellite capable of detecting threats from space before they hit us. NASA and the ESA have sunk billions into development.”

“You’d think they’d make a copy or something.”

“Not the issue.”

She walked up to the doorway of their target, the only building not currently smoldering, and kicked it in. The first room was deserted and they worked in tandem to clear the ground floor of bad guys before moving to the basement entrance. She took a breath as she stared down into the blackness of what looked like an abyss that had Sam activating his goggles to do a sweep for heat signatures. He kept his voice low as he said, “I don’t read anyone down there, but do you want me to send Redwing down for a sweep?”

“Couldn’t hurt.” Tapping her comm, she said, “Steve, Sam and I are going underground.”

“Copy, I’ll mop up topside.” After a grunt from Steve and a cry of pain from someone else, he added, “Be careful.”

Sam shared a look with Natasha before following her down the stairway behind Redwing, who was providing him a real-time map from ten feet ahead. The first level underground consisted of metal catwalks, so he sent Redwing down further. “It looks like some kind of factory slash lab. Hey, I think I see a piece of their Death Star.”

“For the last time…” Natasha grumbled. They’d been over the details of the mission multiple times, of course, but he found it amusing to needle her about the nature of the spy satellite. From what he’d read, the technology in it could definitely be adapted to turn it into a weapon of mass destruction that no one would see coming from high in the sky overhead. It was a good enough reason for these guys the Russian government was denying employing to steal the specs and start building, hence the intervention of the Avengers in…

“God, I hate the Urals,” Natasha muttered, interrupting his train of thought as he continued to fly Redwing below them while they crept forward in the dark. “They used to take us up Mount Narodnaya in the winter for training. Do you want to know how cold it is here in January?”

“Reminisce later, I think he just found the mainframe.”

“You mean you did.”

“Uh, no, Redwing did.”

“Your attachment to that thing really is unhealthy. Does Maria know you’re…” He walked into her as she stopped unexpectedly. “I think I found the light switch.”

A loud clunk immediately preceded fluorescent lights flooding the wide underground space. Sam looked over the railing on the floor far below. “Damn.”

“Looks like they weren’t just building Death Stars, huh?” Natasha shot him a wink before jumping from the catwalk, using a grappling hook to lower herself.

Sam shook his head before extending his wings and joining her descent. “Y’know, the stairs were right over there.”

“This was faster.” She unhooked the wire from her belt three feet off the floor and dropped the rest of the way. “Steve, do you read us?”

The reply was crackly. “Barely. Objective?”

“I think we’re there. You okay?”

“Just about to run out of zip ties.”

She sighed. “As long as you still have bullets.”

Sam shook his head, knowing for a fact that Natasha didn’t even bother carrying more than one set of restraints. As she starting inspecting the computer setup, he sent Redwing to the door to keep watch while he took a look around. In addition to the makings of the Death Star, there were some big fucking guns and multiple missiles in various stages of construction. Some of them had a distinctly familiar blueish glow in the warheads. “Uh, Nat?”

“Yeah, I know. Hydra weapons,” she replied, not looking up from the computer terminal as her fingers flew across the keyboard. “Looks like they isolated their data to stop anyone from hacking in. No way to tell if there’s an offsite backup. I think if we blow the hell out of this place, we should be in the clear.”

“So no one else will be able to build a Hydra Death Star?”

“Well, these particular morons won’t be able to, anyway.” She glanced around the room. “Not sure if I can rig the triggers on the warheads, but there’s nothing enough C-4 can’t handle. You think fifteen minutes will be enough for us to clear the blast radius?”

“Dunno. Those look pretty badass.”

There was a burst of static before Steve’s voice came through the comms, “…ow big a radius?”

“Not sure with the Hydra explosives, but…” She never stopped wiring explosives together as she calculated yields in her head. Smart as those science-eggheads Stark and Banner were, there was no one Sam would trust to figure out something so practical in the clutch. She set a fully wired block of C-4 inside the casing of one of the warheads with steady hands and nodded in a satisfied way. “We should be at least a mile out when it blows.”

“I’ll en…path to…et clear.”

“Copy.” She set a timer, connected it to a backup detonator and grinned as she wrapped her arms around Sam’s neck. “Shall we?”

“You’re the one blowin’ this shit to kingdom come,” he replied, taking a moment to compensate for the extra weight as he shot off the ground. He landed on the catwalk and followed her back upstairs at a run. Redwing managed to tuck into his wingpack just as they met Steve in the courtyard. “You bleedin’?”

“It’s not mine,” he stated simply, flicking his sodden hair off his forehead and falling into step beside Natasha as they sprinted toward the quinjet. “You guys okay?”

“Better once we’re outta here.” Sam flew above them as they ran, ensuring the path was indeed clear, but it looked like Steve hadn’t been playing around with that particular facet of the mission. “We don’t need to spare any of these goons for interrogation, do we?”

“Don’t bother.” Natasha made a funny little hitch step as she kicked a moaning man into unconsciousness as she passed. “If they don’t die in the blast, their bosses will probably kill them for losing the specs and the facility.”

Sam shot ahead and landed beside the rear ramp of the jet. He had slipped off and stowed his wingpack by the time Steve and Natasha had arrived. “How long ‘til the fireworks start?”

“Six minutes,” she replied. “Should be good.”

“Strap in,” Steve commanded unnecessarily, as Natasha was already in the copilot’s seat while Sam was securing his own harness.

They were airborne moments later, zipping away from the Hydra site as Natasha called out both distance and time. “One click, twenty seconds…one point four, ten seconds…three, two, one…”

Only the sound of the quinjet’s engines was present for so long that Sam was about to ask if something had gone wrong, when a blue flash spread through the cabin. He felt the jet accelerate as he shouted, “Punch it!”

They were momentarily enveloped by the light before they emerged into the normal twilight, just before a boom echoed behind them. All was quiet for a moment before Natasha said, “Guess I should have used a calculator when I was working out the blast radius.”

“It’s fine. We’re okay.” Steve reached across the cockpit to grasp her hand. The flight was quiet until they landed at Châtelet and taxied into the barn.

As Steve trudged upstairs to take a shower, Sam found himself alone in the kitchen with Natasha. She quietly set a kettle to boil as he made toast.

He could only take silence for so long. “So, uh, earlier. You were talking about your training.” He waited a moment for her to shut him down, but it didn’t come. He cautiously continued, “You were sayin’ they used to take you to the mountains in the winter. So, I was just wonderin’…who’s _they_?”

“The Red Room,” she provided. After an extended silence she asked, “Steve didn’t tell you?”

“Not his story to tell.”

“Oh.” Silence reigned for the time it took for the water in kettle to boil. She ignored the whistling for a moment as she said, “We were an arm of the KGB, female agents trained to spy and kill. Our cover was a Bolshoi feeder school. You should see my grand jeté.”

“Yeah, sure.”

She poured boiling water into her tea pot. “It was mostly hand to hand combat and murder, so don’t think I’m going to go all ‘Black Swan’ on you.’”

Uncomfortable about just how much he wanted to hear, Sam repeated, “Sure.”

“We can just drop it, you know.”

“Yeah.” He wasn’t sure he didn’t want to hear a little more about Natasha’s past, but he was equally unsure about whether he actually did. She was sitting down at the kitchen table with her cup of tea when he eventually asked, “So, you were, like, raised as a little assassin?”

“Pretty much. I was an orphan taken in by the Red Room and they provided for me. For all the awful things, I have marketable skills and speak multiple languages, which is more than most Russian orphans from my era can claim.”

“Plus you can dance.”

“Not exactly a career.”

“Heh, sure. Ask Misty Copeland.”

“Yeah, like I could compare to…wait.” Natasha was now staring at him with wide eyes. “ _You_ follow ballet?”

“Well,” he remembered back to an ad he’d watched of a twirling woman in underwear after following a link from a buddy a few years back and thought better of mentioning it. “She…I saw a hot woman in a leotard ad, if that counts as following ballet.”

“But you know she’s a dancer! How have you not mentioned this?”

“Um…”

“Sam, the Royal Ballet of Flanders in Antwerp is performing _Onegin_ next month and Steve has zero interest in going, but you and I…” Natasha was now grasping his hand, excited as he’d ever seen her. “I can get tickets? For us?”

He found himself incapable of denying her. “Yeah. Yeah! We’ll go and let Steve sit at home, wondering why he wouldn’t take you. I swear, if Maria wanted to see a ballet…”

“She will! I’ll get tickets for the three of us and…” Natasha trailed off as she walked out of the room with her tea cup, leaving Sam to feel like he’d stepped in something. She was still on her laptop in the other room a few minutes later when she called out, “International news has picked up on the explosion in northern Russia. No mention of us yet.”

“Oh. Good.”

“And I got the tickets for _Onegin_! Three weeks from now!”

“Great!” he replied with false enthusiasm. Steve would probably be grateful he didn’t have to go to the ballet, but Sam wasn’t entirely sure how Maria would feel about this unexpected commitment. He held up a hand when Steve appeared in the kitchen moments later, still rubbing a towel through his hair. “Dude, ask your girl.”

Sam walked upstairs for his own shower without another word.


	18. T-minus 112 Days

Steve stretched on the lawn as the sun rose, as was his habit before his morning run. Lunges, hip flexors, hip circles, calf raises, toe touches, quad stretches. Blood pumping, he took off down the driveway. His heartrate didn’t really get going until he put some effort in after the first mile. He had broken a sweat by the time he passed St. Michael’s after five miles, reminding himself that he should go to Mass that Sunday if he was available, as he’d seen Sister Josephine at the bakery two days before and she’d mentioned his absence. It wasn’t until his second pass by the church that his lungs had really started to burn. Another two laps of the village and he’d be ready to head home. The countryside passed by in a blur of cottages, gardens and trees as he pushed himself to run faster, be better…

“Don’t kill yourself, man,” Sam suggested, coming out of their driveway on his own run as Steve passed on the start of his third lap. He shouted, “And don’t ‘on your left’ me more than once!”

Steve didn’t, taking the left over the long hill past the churchyard before heading home. Sam’s sneakers weren’t on the designated mat, so Steve kicked his own off and left the back door unlocked. He stomped up the stairs, just in case Natasha wasn’t completely awake yet.  

She hummed a pillow at him as he entered their bedroom, though he caught it easily before it hit his face. “Why can’t you ever let me sleep in?”

“Does it make a difference? I know you’re awake the moment I’m out of bed anyway.”

“Yeah, so why can’t you just stay in bed?” she practically whined as he lobbed the pillow back at her. For all her incomparable fitness, she absolutely hated running and had no problem complaining about his dedication to his morning routine. “Then I won’t have to lie here wondering where you are.”

“You know I’m out running.”

“You should be _in_ , cuddling.”

He pulled his t-shirt off and flopped on the bed beside her. “We can cuddle now.”

“No, now you’re sweaty and disgusting.” She rolled away from him and pushed against his shoulder. “Go bathe.”

“Nah, I’m gonna ooze all over you. Remember, I have no appreciation of social mores.” He was getting a lot of mileage out of teasing her over the lack of invitation to the ballet. Truthfully, he’d thought she was joking about going with just Sam and Maria, right up to the day of the performance when Maria had arrived and a fourth ticket hadn’t magically appeared. He’d actually enjoyed the time to himself while the trio was in Antwerp, trimming the small row of shrubs in the back of the house (the ones not visible from the road, as his Dutch unicorns had been attention getting) into a mother duck and her ducklings. And now he had something to tease Natasha about. “I’m a scummy rube who doesn’t appreciate culture.”

She sigh heavily and turned back toward him, resting her hand on his sweat-dampened beard. “Steve, you know I never said that. I invited you and you weren’t interested.”

Although it was true that he’d brushed off her suggestion about going, not realizing it hadn’t just been an offhand suggestion for an activity,  he’d also never understood how fun it could be to hold the moral high ground when it absolutely didn’t matter. He continued laying it on thick, “Aw, c’mon, Nat. Be my social superior and all. Make me feel like a high school dropout. Treat me like I’m a caveman who’s…uh, never been to Starbucks.”

“Okay, too much,” she replied, pushing herself away, pulling the sheet tightly around her body. “How many times do I have to apologize for not buying you a ticket?”

Feeling he’d finally crossed the line, he conceded, “For this? Never again.”

“Oh, thank…”

“If!” he added with a flourish of his hand.

She rolled her eyes. “How are you negotiating with me right now?”

He wrapped his admittedly sweaty arms around her waist and pulled her into his body, nudging his nose against hers until she met his gaze. “I was going to say, you never have to apologize for this whole ballet fiasco again if you make sure that you tell me that you really, really want to do something and don’t let me brush it off with a dumb joke about how I’ll only go if you wear a tutu.” He gently pecked her lips. “Okay?”

“Oh my God!” She shoved him away and he waited a moment to find out what he’d said wrong, but she went on, “Even when you’re _trying_ to be a complete dick, you end up being perfect.”

“I’m not…” he bit off the denial of perfection as she glared at him. “Really, Nat. I’d have gone with you in a heartbeat if I’d know how genuinely excited you were about seeing a ballet.”

Although he meant every word, he was shocked by her response, wrapping her arms around him and even throwing her leg across his hip. “I don’t deserve you,” she whispered as she pressed her lips against his.

“Don’t say that,” he murmured between kisses. “I love you, Natasha. You’re my…”

“Stop!” She didn’t pull away, even as she said, “I can’t be your world or your everything or…”

“Shh…you are, no matter what. And I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have you with me. Nat, I…”

“I love you,” she interrupted, burying her face in his chest. He tried to convince himself that she was just smearing his sweat around, but he was pretty sure she was crying into his pecs. She’d gotten teary a few times over the past two weeks, sometimes apropos of nothing, and he’d learned quickly that it was better to just get her through it than to point it out.

After a few moments of massaging her scalp with his fingertips, he suggested, “Wanna jump in the shower with me?”

“I probably should, now that I’m disgustingly sweaty by proxy.” She sniffed before looking up at him with a wry grin that didn’t quite make up for her still-watery eyes. “Then you can throw the duvet in the wash. Not like the sheets didn’t need it anyway.” Using the top sheet in lieu of a robe, she walked toward the ensuite bathroom.

It was at that moment that he remembered he was still in trouble. “Shit.,” he mumbled.

“Language.” She turned a severely arched eyebrow at him. “I take it from your outburst of profanity that you haven’t fixed the leaky pipe in our shower yet?”

“Well, I thought I had, but I think I got the wrong size washer or something because when I tested it yesterday…and then I haven’t had the chance to go to the hardware store yet so…” He did his best to look sheepish as he sat on the side of the bed. “Sorry.”

She sighed, fiddling with the sheet clasped around her, making her cleavage very distracting. “How long do you think until Sam gets back from his run?”

“Nat, we can’t!”

But she was already heading for the hallway door. They really only had one hard and fast rule in the house beyond not advertising their presence, and they’d been conscientious about keeping it. He considered the angles as he quickly stripped the bed, tossing the linens into the already overstuffed hamper. If they didn’t actually do anything but shower, they wouldn’t technically be breaking the rule and if they did just shower they would probably be finished before Sam returned from his run so…

As Steve stepped into the doorway and saw that Natasha had just let the sheet drop in the hallway like a path to her wet, naked body, he forgot that they weren’t supposed to be doing this. When he closed the bathroom door behind him, the room was already steamy. He watched her silhouette moving behind the curtain as he pulled off his socks and sweatpants before slipping into the shower with her.

This bathroom had a tub with a shower rather than the stall in theirs, so it was narrower but longer. He maneuvered himself so he was behind her and took the conditioner in its unfamiliar bottle from her hands and poured a small measure into his palm before working it into her hair with both hands. She hummed with satisfaction. This was good. It was nice. They could just wash each other and there didn’t have to be anything sexual about it. It was just an affectionate act between two people who loved each other, no matter what his stubborn dick thought as blood rushed into it.

He tried to keep it away from her, but she was already chuckling as he rinsed the conditioner from her hair. “Sorry.”

“For?”

“We’re, uh, we’re just supposed to be,” he glanced down at an orange goo she was drizzling into her hand as she turned to face him, “y’know, just showering.”

“Lush bodywash,” she indicated before rubbing her hand down his stomach. He sucked in a breath as she teased the dark blond curls surrounding his still-growing erection, working up a lather as her hands began to dance all over his sensitive flesh.

He tried to remind himself that they were just showering when she pulled a long, soapy stroke up his dick, giving a gentle twist to the head. “Ohhh-kay. We should probably wash the rest of me, too.”

She simply shrugged, reaching around his balls to lather them up as well, even sparing a press of her thumb to the sensitive spot just behind them. “Not planning to have my mouth on your armpit.”

“Nat, come on.”

“Relax, soldier. You don’t have to give me a speech about respecting our friend’s space. I’m just cleaning you for when we get back to our bedroom.” She stopped, kissed him softly and slipped past him out of the shower. “I think you can handle the rest.” Her departure was whisper-quiet and he was left standing with a throbbing pink hard-on poking out of a sudsy white crotch.

Taking a few deep breaths, he found that he couldn’t rinse himself off due to the sensitivity of his situation. He had to take his time washing his hair and the rest of his body. He wished he’d grabbed his razor because he probably could have shaved while he waited, though he probably would have screwed up his beard which in turn would have pissed off Natasha and he didn’t need her torturing him any more today.

The hot water was turning lukewarm by the time he bit the bullet and just switched it to cold, shooting himself with the chilling, withering spray for a full thirty seconds before he was sure he could wrap a towel around his waist without his predicament being painfully obvious because Sam had to be home by now, just waiting for his turn in the shower.

Sam was, in fact, walking up the stairs just as Steve was opening his bedroom door. “Thought you fixed your shower.”

“It’s still leaking, but I’ll get on it today.”

“’Kay. I got a new omelet recipe if you don’t mind waiting on breakfast.”

“Not at all. Your cooking is al-…” As he opened the door, he made the mistake of glancing at the bed, where Natasha was lounging on a set of…white satin sheets? _Those_ were definitely new, as was the red lingerie set she was wearing. It was only with a super soldier effort that he looked back at Sam. Even then, he couldn’t form a sentence. “I, you…breakfast? Yeah?”

Sam just chuckled. “Yeah, I think I’ll save the new recipe, unless you want omelets for lunch.”

“Sure. That’s…” his eyes flicked back to Natasha, now beckoning him with a crooked finger and an air kiss, and he lost his train of thought again. “Aahhh…”

Sam just clapped his shoulder. “Okay, you’re clearly not up to conversation now. I think you broke his brain with whatever you got on, Nat!”

“Or maybe don’t have on,” she called back.

He groaned, but gave Steve another shove into the room, pointedly looking away. “Just get in there and I’ll get my headphones on the second I’m out of the shower.”

“Thanks.” Steve felt slightly guilty about what had almost happened in the shower, but it was quickly assuaged by another look at Natasha as he closed the door.


	19. T-minus 103 Days

Natasha blinked her eyes hard to try and refocus them on the screen, but it remained the same blurry feed she’d been staring at for the past few hours. Four separate views of the same shitty apartment she’d been stuck watching for nearly three days. Ivan Lebedev, her target, was currently enjoying a late afternoon nap after spending the day at home, so she hadn’t even had the distraction of tailing him to his office and using her secondary surveillance site. She blew a loud breath through pursed lips. Most of the missions she’d worked since getting back into the world had been action-heavy, shooting and hitting and _doing_. She was almost dangerously out of practice on a hands-off, observe and report mission like the one Fury had asked of her. Her time in Nizhny Novgorod was really dragging and she wanted to get home. As if he didn’t have anyone else fluent in Russian available on short notice to fill the vacancy. Why was she even taking orders from him anymore?

She didn’t really need to wonder why he’d asked her to handle this one, given who might be involved. How were there still so many Red Room affiliates still out there? How could she have so much blood on her hands and not be finished with them? She didn’t really want to think about that now.

Leaning back in her creaky chair in the small, dark room cramped with computers, monitors and receivers, adjacent to her current sleeping quarters in the abandoned offices of a bankrupt shipping firm, she reconsidered her current surveillance skill level and decided she was essentially operating on instinct where that was concerned. Spycraft was all but genetically coded in her. It was her patience that was out of practice. That, and her tolerance for working alone was just about nil. She missed Steve’s concern and Sam’s jokes in her ear. Even on the rare missions she’d worked without Steve and Sam since they’d become the Rogue Avengers, she’d gone out with Maria. Right now, Natasha was operating on her own.

Strange how she’d never found that bothersome before. She was going back and forth about whether that was the cause of her unsettled stomach, though she was currently leaning toward blaming the local diet she’d been consuming. Last night’s green shchi was her prime suspect, though it was tough to be sure it wasn’t the fish soup from earlier in the day. She wondered if she was just unlucky or if Russian cuisine was only truly palatable when paired with vodka; she wouldn’t be finding out, as she was essentially on duty for the entirety of this mission. She’d carried in rations and protein bars, so she could rely on those even if they were ridiculously unappetizing.

Maybe she was just in the mood to blame a Russian source, since it was Russians to blame for her even being here.

She flicked through the surveillance feeds, noting Lebedev was thrashing around in his sleep like he was having a nightmare. “Hm, мудак, do you feel I’m close? Maybe you’re not as stupid as I thought,” she murmured, watching as he shot up to a sitting position, struggling against his tangled sheets.  Her gaze shifted to another screen as he picked up his phone and sent the text message she’d hopefully been waiting for.  

_я готов_

She fired her own message off to Fury, requesting orders. They were disappointing when they arrived.

_Conf. O &R. DNE._

The first two were obvious – of course she wouldn’t move until Lebedev received a response and of course she would continue to observe and report – but the third just pissed her off. Why shouldn’t she engage? She could kick some ass, make some arrests and leave the idiots for whoever else Fury must have on the ground! She stared at the secure messaging app, willing further clarification to tell her she could apprehend her target or his associates, but none was forthcoming.

“Сукин сын.” Still, she turned her attention back to the incoming message on Lebedev’s phone, giving a time and a meeting place, along with the advisement,

_не подведи нас_

Natasha tipped her head to one side as she considered the threat. From the sparse details Fury had given her, it had come from an arms dealing ring that called themselves Красная Смерть, as if that weren’t terribly on the nose. Although she hadn’t heard of this particular organization before, she wasn’t surprised that it was run by people from her KGB days. If he wasn’t allowing her to intervene, it was likely Fury just wanted to confirm who he was dealing with, like she couldn’t just look at some surveillance photos. Like she didn’t have better places to be.

Her stomach gave an unexpected lurch and she cursed the shchi, cursed Russia in general. She could be wrapped around a nude super soldier in bed right now, damn it! If neither Orlova nor Snkitski were involved in this bullshit, so help her…

A follow up text suddenly came through from Lebedev’s contact.

Твой сын в безопасности. На данный момент.

Well, fuck. She flipped through the files again to discover that Lebedev did indeed have a nine year old son with the wife he’d divorced a few years before. So these Red Death shitheads were holding the guy’s son hostage? Even if they were just threatening, it explained why a previously unknown computer programmer had suddenly become a player in the international black market for missile guidance systems. Fuck, why did there always have to be extenuating circumstances?

She suddenly remembered that she’d missed Cooper’s eleventh birthday last month. He was too Hawkeye, Jr cool to express his disappointment over Facetime that she wasn’t able to be there, even if she’d sent him a big box of the latest video games, a skateboard and two pairs of suede sneakers his parents didn’t properly understand the ‘edginess’ of, not that she particularly did either; she’d just gone by Cooper’s requests. She hoped he knew she was trying to be the best Auntie Nat she could be. No time for that now.

As she dug further into the file she’d basically ignored after skimming it on arrival, she confirmed that Lebedev had been a quietly competent career programmer who’d suddenly found himself promoted to a leading position at one of the better IT companies in Nizhny Novgorod, developing inertial guidance systems for the most advanced Russian missiles. The sections she’d ignored after reading about his education, career and disarrayed finances contained the reasons for the chaos, namely a lean period following some misguided investments during which he’d missed alimony payments and had to turn to shady loan sources to prevent legal action that could deprive him of his very humble Soviet-era apartment. Why hadn’t she prepped more thoroughly?

She ignored the obvious conclusion about lack of conscientiousness due to a potential encounter with her past as her message app suddenly flashed again with an urgent text from Fury. _Stay in. Repeat, stay in!_

She was unable to prevent her thumbs from stamping out an angry, _WHY?_

_FSBSVR invlvd. JUST NO._

That particular message gave her pause. Neither the Russian Federal Security Service nor the Foreign Intelligence Service would hesitate to capture or kill her if she showed her face at a meeting they were monitoring, regardless of whether they were after the same people. Still, she was about to provide a reasoned response about why she should go in, guns blazing, when Fury sent another message.

_Dnt wt Cpt Am 2 kia me._

“Damn it, Maria.” Natasha hadn’t told Fury that she and Steve were involved and, considering they were out of the world’s view, there were only so many people who knew about their relationship. She hadn’t anticipated that Maria would have spilled to Fury, but… Her message screen lit up again.

_Mra nt rspbl. Mr lk brbd hr bc Sam._

Why did Nick have to be both terribly candid and professional at the same time? At least she was sure that Maria was probably in the room and seriously annoyed if Nick was being forced to send qualifying messages. Nick’s fake l33t wasn’t difficult to decipher once you figured out the lack of vowels and other randomly dropped letters. Natasha eventually sighed and sat back in her chair as Lebedev tucked a photo of his son into his pocket on her video feed. Her mission was over. It wasn’t her business if little nine year old Sergei Ivanovich’s father was making some really, really stupid decisions. For all she knew, her own father may have been a criminal, bred to her selected mother in a KGB experiment to produce superior assassins for the Red Room. Was there any point in knowing that much about your parents?

Making a snap decision, she stood and ran from the room, throwing on a coat over her catsuit and grabbing only the small weapons in reach and not already strapped to her body. She was on the street in moments, following Lebedev like a shadow through the deepening dusk. He was walking in the direction of the Metro station he had used to get to work the previous two days, but he didn’t slow as he reached the entrance, nearly jogging now. Natasha’s long grey coat flapped behind her in a sudden breeze as she sped up to keep pace. Shit, this was dumb. She should have at least brought her phone instead of just the emergency transponder in her belt.

She waited until Lebedev turned off the main street in the opposite direction of the address he’d been texted; it was the direction she could have expected, though. She ducked down an alleyway that paralleled his path. Breaking into a run, she sprinted to intercept him at the next corner. He gasped in shock when she pulled him into the alley. “Do not scream, Ivan Alexandrovich,” she hissed in Russian as she slammed him against the wall, just out of view of the streetlights.

“How do you know my name?” he managed to sputter in a terrified whisper.

“And where are you going in such a hurry?”

He suddenly sagged against the wall and it took all her effort to keep him from dropping to the ground. “You are with them! I am going to the meeting! I just have to…”

“Yes, I know where your ex-wife and son live.” If she thought he had given up supporting his weight before, she found she was mistaken as she was forced to shove him harder against the wall. “I can keep them safe,” she lied. Sort of. Just because she hadn’t put plans in place yet didn’t mean she couldn’t. “You do not have to risk your own life. How will your son feel if he loses you?”

“He lost me years ago,” Lebedev mumbled. “This way, I can do something good for him. See him provided for.”

“You think they will let you go once you give them what they want? No, they will ask for more and more, and you will never have a moment’s peace. And your son? They will hold him over your head until he is old enough to work for them and then they will turn him to their side while they make you watch. He will become just like them. Is this what you want for him?”

From his sobs, she could guess it was not. At least he was trying not to be too loud.

“I can help you. If you give them anything, I can’t make any guarantees. I doubt you’ll get such and offer from State Security or SVR if they catch you.”

“Who _are_ you?”

“Someone with the resources to help your son. You will tell me everything and I will make sure he is safe from them.” She waited a moment for him to meet her stare. His eyes were wide and red around the whites, but he gained confidence as she maintained her gaze. “Let’s go get your wife and son.”

Less than twenty minutes later, she was driving a rusty, hotwired Lada she hoped would make it to the outskirts of the city where her quinjet was stashed. Lebedev sat in the front seat, Irina and their son in the back, clutching both their hastily packed suitcases and each other. There was also a gerbil in a shoebox wrapped in tightly in string and stabbed through with breathing holes. Natasha pulled up to the vacant lot where she’d left the jet cloaked. Lebedev got out of the car and looked around in disbelief. “This? This is where you bring us?”

“No, this is where I bring you to take you somewhere else.” She tapped a button on the key fob she pulled from a pocket.

As the jet shimmered into focus, Ivan cursed, Irina crossed herself while saying a prayer and Sergei…the boy was looking at the jet with an open-mouthed grin, the gerbil-box clasped against his chest. He managed to breathe out, “Круто!”

“да,” Natasha replied, lowering the ramp. The family followed her aboard.

While she was conducting the pre-flight checks, a screen to her left came alive. “Romanoff, tell me you’re just on your way out like I told you before you stopped responding to my messages.”

“Well, you can obviously see I’m preparing to leave in the jet you loaned me, so…”

“And you’re heading back, having left well enough alone?”

“Actually, I’ve got two adults and a child claiming asylum. And a gerbil,” she added as an afterthought.

“Damn it, Natasha!” She listened to his probably justified rant about international intelligence sharing protocols and interagency cooperation all through take-off and for the first twenty minutes of the flight.

She eventually interrupted, “If this were going to be a problem, Nick, you wouldn’t have continued talking while I left Russian airspace. So do we have a place for the Lebedev family or not?”

“Got two, actually. One for Ivan, another for Irina and Sergei. The second one’s big enough if they reconcile. If not, they’re still in the same Russian neighborhood in Bergen County.”

“Good. Hope Jersey won’t be too much of a shock to their systems.”

“Yeah, yeah. You _owe_ me, Romanoff.”

“Thanks, Nick.” Natasha glanced over her shoulder at the small family in back of her. Irina was stroking Sergei’s hair as he spoke softly to the box he was still clutching. Ivan watched them from across the jet with a wistful smile. Maybe owing Nick wasn’t so terrible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always feel like a jerk if I don’t include my own meticulously researched (aka Google Translate) Russian, but you’re on your own for Fury’s fake l33t –
> 
> Мудак - asshole
> 
> я готов – I’m ready.
> 
> Сукин сын – Son of a bitch
> 
> не подведи нас – Don’t fail us.
> 
> Красная Смерть – Red Death
> 
> Твой сын в безопасности. На данный момент. – Your son is safe. For now.


	20. T-minus 92 Days

Sam tried not to be insulted about his gourmet breakfast being maligned. He tried not to care that Natasha had taken a few bites of his meticulously prepared lobster Benedict (his Hollandaise game was on point), enthusing about the flavor the whole time. Then she’d abruptly rushed to the bathroom to throw it all back up. He’d gotten the lobster as a special favor from Pierre at the local boucherie, after Pierre had gotten a shipment of fresh lobster straight from Sweden. Sam had boiled up the creepy-crawlies the night before to rave reviews, so it was strange that she hadn’t had a reaction until she was eating the leftovers. Steve, of course, had followed her, so Sam was left alone at the table with his chef d’œuvre. He took the time to silently take another bite of his own meal before standing from the table.

A proper chef didn’t let his creations go to waste. He was pretty sure he’d read that somewhere. He decided that _proper_ chefs were probably all assholes. Sam left the rest of the lobster Benedict cooling on the table in order to go check on his friend.

When he walked down the hall, he saw that Steve was gently knocking on the bathroom door, asking Natasha if she was okay. As the only response was retching, it was a safe bet that she wasn’t. Still, Sam asked, “Hey. She all right?”

“I think it’s a stomach bug. She was nauseous yesterday morning too.”

“Uh-huh.” Realization struck as Sam remembered his oldest sister’s complaints a year after her marriage. He looked at Steve incredulously. “So she’s been sick. In the morning.”

“Not just the morning. And it’s only been on and off for a few days. She’s mostly fine.”

Continuing to put together the pieces, Sam continued, “And she’s been, y’know, emotional.” He thought back to her tearing up last week while they’d watched _Legally Blonde_ , of all things. “For her.”

“I mean…maybe?” Steve replied with a noncommittal shrug. “She did rescue that family in Russia against orders and then we had that thing with the Bulgarian orphans.”

“Yeah, that was rough.” Sam swallowed hard, trying not to think of the mission they’d finished two days before, closing down a brothel and orphanage with disturbing levels of crossover in Plovdiv. He swallowed again before saying, “Steve, don’t take this the wrong way, but…you and Nat are, uh, using protection, right? I mean, I know they had condoms back in World War Two, but…someone told you about the birds and the bees right?”

“Sam, I’m not an idiot. I got the sex talk from my Ma back in the 30s. A lot of it was about finding and marrying the right girl and not getting anyone in trouble, but…it’s not like the, uh, basic mechanics have changed.” Steve looked down at his feet, looking very uncomfortable in his own skin. “Talk about awkward.”

Sam pushed, “Okay, then you and Nat have been careful?”

“Well…sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“I…I don’t think it’s my place to say, but…” The fidgeting started to get out of control. “See, the thing is…”

Natasha suddenly called out from the bathroom. “Just tell him, while remembering that I can hear every word you say and I’ve been listening this whole time.” The command was followed by a series of dry heaves.

A bright red flush spread up Steve’s neck and over his face, overtaking the light pink that had been present previously. “Well, um, when she was, uh, working for the Red Room, they, uh…they’re the Russians she used to work for, and they had her from childhood and…um, when she was old enough, they made her, uh, have a surgery that, well…she…she can’t…we don’t need rubbers,” he finally rushed out. As an afterthought, he added, “They’re not exactly advertising them three for a dime at the pro station anymore, y’know.”

“Yeah, that’d cost you two about a buck and a half a week, huh?” Sam replied, rolling his eyes. Even with his ears shielded by his noise cancelling headphones, he couldn’t help but notice the high frequency that he used them. It was probably more surprising that they hadn’t had to deal with a situation like this _yet_ if they weren’t relying on contingencies. “So, guess I can be the first to offer congratulations?”

Steve shook Sam’s proffered hand like he was just going through the motions, looking extremely bewildered. “For what?”

“I’m not pregnant!” Natasha shouted before retching again.

“What?”

“Yeah, mood swings, swollen breasts, morning sickness? I’m pretty sure you got a bun in the oven.”

Sam suddenly found himself shoved up against the wall by a furious Steve. “Why are you looking at her breasts?”

“Because I’m a man.” If she hadn’t worn her catsuit and ballistic vest during their last mission, Sam probably wouldn’t have noticed the increase in size, but he vividly remembered her complaining about a sticky zipper as she’d boarded the jet on the way to Bulgaria, trying to pull the tab up. “And because I have eyes. Don’t take it personal.”

Steve warily let him go as the bathroom door opened on a pale Natasha. She repeated, “I’m not pregnant.”

“Maybe you should pee on a stick just to be sure,” Sam replied. He reached out to grab Steve’s arm as the latter tried to walk past him. “Now, I know you’re not about to go out in the yard to break off a twig, right?”

“Um, no.” Steve shuffled back over to Natasha, pulling her into a hug. “Is it…is it even possible? I mean, you said…”

“I know!” Her muffled retort seemed less vehement from her current position, wrapped up in Steve’s arms. “And it’s impossible. They made sure.”

“Then we could make a doctor’s appointment, just to _really_ make sure?”

“No. Like I said, it’s not possible.”

“Nat…”

“Stop!” She pulled away from Steve and stomped upstairs, slamming a door for good measure.

Steve looked to Sam for reassurance. “Got nothin’ for you, dude. I’m with you two, whatever you decide, but this is all on you guys.”

“Then…you think she really is…”

“Look, I’m no expert, but I’ve been around pregnant women before. If Nat’s not pregnant, she’s doin’ a damn fine impression.” He guided Steve back toward the kitchen and sat him back down in front of his unfinished breakfast. “For now, just take a deep breath. Maybe this is just a hormonal thing, maybe it’s more serious. Let’s just stay calm.”

“I…I don’t…”

“Breathe, Cap. Just breathe.” As Steve got himself under control, Sam poured a big glass of orange juice. He waited a few moments, watching Steve inhale and exhale, before saying, “Okay, better? Now, try not to freak out when you go upstairs and talk to her.” When Steve reached out for the glass, Sam chastised him, “Uh-uh-uh. That’s for Nat. Folic acid, just in case,” he added.

“Sam, I…”

“I’m really not the one you need to be talking to right now.”

“I know. I just…” Steve took a very deep breath and let it out with a whoosh, gaze turning up before looking back. “Thanks, Sam.”

“Anytime.”

Although it really wasn’t his responsibility, Sam had taken the Jeep to the pharmacy two towns over later that day while Steve continued to try talking sense into Natasha. He’d purchased three of every brand of pregnancy test available. It was hard to deny the results several hours and twelve positive tests later, but Natasha was trying her damnedest. Sam wasn’t sure when he’d become so comfortable with handling little plastic sticks that had been peed on, but he was now definitely ready if Maria sprang something crazy on him. “Well, unless all of these things are wrong…”

“Well, they’re not right!” Natasha shouted from the bathroom, where she’d again sequestered herself.

“Yeah, that was the argument about eight tests ago, but…”

“Then none of them are testing the right thing because I’m not pregnant!”

Sam had no idea what to say. Maria was still en route after he’d called her on the way to buy the pregnancy tests, and Steve was lying on the bed, muttering about knitting blankies or something. Natasha had been shouting denials from the bathroom for the better part of the day and Sam was about at his wit’s end. In a moment of weakness he shouted, “What the hell do you want me to do? Do you want me to take your piss to the local clinic?”

“I probably wouldn’t be pregnant if you did!”

“That doesn’t even make sense!”

“I don’t care!”

“Whoa, people!” Maria called out, suddenly appearing in the bedroom, pushing Sam away from the bathroom door. He would have kissed her if not for the fact that she was shoving him out of her path. “Natasha? Natasha!”

A soft voice eventually said, “Fuck off, Maria.”

“No! I’m coming in in thirty seconds no matter what you say! Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight. Twenty-seven…I’m not afraid to kick down the door…twenty-two”

The bathroom door suddenly cracked open. Maria shoved Steve away and dodged through the opening before it closed. Steve, who had at least roused himself enough to get out of bed, looked to Sam, who shrugged. “Hey, I don’t know. Let ‘em fix each other’s hair and do some mani/pedis maybe?”

“I heard that!” Maria shouted.

The tone was scary enough to drive Steve and Sam into the hallway. Sam suggested, “Coffee?”

“Yeah.” Steve still looked a bit shell shocked, but repeated, “Yeah. Good option.”

They retreated to the kitchen., where Sam could assert his confident certainty. He started mixing the batter for a batch of blueberry muffins as soon as he’d started the coffee. There was nothing he couldn’t handle in his kitchen realm. As he tucked the muffins into the oven, he started thinking about meals he could cook from the ingredients he currently had. As he’d gotten into the continental habit of shopping only for the day’s needs, there wasn’t much he could do, especially not to impress Maria, if he didn’t make it to the shops in town within the next few hours. He wasn’t about to leave Steve in his current state, though. They sipped coffee quietly for a while without trying to interrupt the girl talk upstairs.

As Sam pulled the muffins from the oven twenty minutes later and set the pan on a rack to cool, he asked, “So, uh…you wanna go for a ride?”

Steve looked up from his third cup of coffee. “Where?”

“Just into town. We’ll pick up something for dinner while we let the ladies have the house for themselves.”

“Oh. Sure.” Steve grabbed his keys without asking what was going on upstairs and fled from the house. Sam would have been okay with it if he hadn’t walked out after telling Natasha and Maria what was up to find Steve revving up the Vespa rather than the Jeep.

Sam frowned as Steve held out Natasha’s helmet. “Seriously?”

“Hey, it’s not my fault you haven’t gotten your own helmet yet.”

He adjusted the strap of Natasha’s before snapping it on and taking his seat behind Steve. They were riding into town by the time Sam thought about how much more comfortable it would have been to just take the Jeep. Still, he sent Steve to the boucherie for meat while he went to the greengrocer. They managed to pack their purchases into the compartment under the seat for the ride home. Sam wasn’t totally comfortable holding onto Steve’s waist the whole way there and back, but he wasn’t about to argue for the need for their disappearance. He still jumped off the Vespa the moment they stopped in the driveway.

Maria walked out to meet them as they unpacked the groceries. She pecked Sam’s cheek before saying, “She agreed.”

“To what?” Steve choked out, dropping the package of steak he’d been about to hand over.

“On my way here,” Maria continued with a pronounced eyeroll as she bent to retrieve the steak from the lawn, “I made an appointment for her with an OB/GYN in Maastricht next week. Her name is Dr. Goossens and she comes highly recommended. I can give you her whole educational background along with the vetting process I used, but the most important thing is that Natasha is going and, Steve? You’re going with her.”

“Of course.” Steve dropped his armful of vegetables and accepted the business card Maria handed him with far more gravity than the exchange seemed to merit. “Thank you.”

“I’ve got identities for the two of you, too.” Maria nodded toward the house. “Get up there, Cap.”

He sprinted into the house, leaving Sam alone with Maria. “So, how’s Nat doin’?” he asked as they toted the groceries into the house.

“Angry. Confused. Scared out of her mind.” He had to laugh at that last one, but Maria shot him a severe look. “Hey, if I found out tomorrow that I was pregnant, I’d be shocked and all that…”

“You and me both,” he muttered.

She went on as if he hadn’t spoken, “But it wouldn’t be something I never even considered. Nat has literally never had to think about that particular what if. She’s always been under the impression it was never a possibility. That’s a pretty big shock to the system, so maybe give her a few days to freak the fuck out.”

“It’s not like I’m takin’ it personal. I’m pretty shocked here, too.” Maria gave him a look that confirmed he was being completely insensitive, so he qualified it, “Obviously not as much as Nat is ‘cause I don’t have a little pea in the pod. I just mean it’s…well, I called you and demanded you get here ASAP, so…thanks for coming, by the way.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “You have to support your friends when they need it. Not that I need to explain _that_ to you.”

“No you do not.” The coffee was still hot, so he poured two cups and set the muffins on a plate on the table. “So, you think we’ll be Auntie Maria and Uncle Sam?” He paused for a moment. “Damn, Cap’s birthday is the Fourth of July and his baby’s gonna have an Uncle Sam!”

“Let’s not get ahead of anything. And definitely don’t say anything like that to Natasha before she’s seen the doctor. Maybe not even after.” She took a thoughtful sip of coffee. “I wonder how much of this is due to shitty Soviet surgeons versus how much is due to super soldier semen.”

“Uh…”

“What, you don’t think Steve has super swimmers? A sack full of microscopic Michael Phelpses?”

“Well, I’m a little worried that you’ve thought so much about what’s happening in my buddy’s balls.”

“Just drink your coffee. This muffin is fantastic, by the way.”

He grinned, appreciating that she’d somehow said the exact thing he wanted to hear. “If you like that, how would you feel about steak au poivre with potatoes au gratin and eggplant wrapped green beans for dinner?”

“I think I should come for dinner more often.”

“Well, lunch and breakfast are also included.” Aside from the obvious pleasure of having her here, Sam decided it would be a decisive advantage to have Maria in the house if they were really dealing with a Black Widow pregnancy.


	21. T-minus 87 Days

Natasha jiggled her foot impatiently in the waiting room of the gynecologist’s office. She refused to include the slash obstetrician in the title, because it was unnecessary as she was absolutely not pregnant, no matter what those stupid tests said. If they would just call her back for her exam, she could prove it! And she was overdue for a pap smear, so at least it wouldn’t be a completely wasted visit.

Steve’s big hand suddenly closed over her knee, the gold band on his ring finger digging into her kneecap as he squeezed. She was wearing a matching band, courtesy of Maria’s planning. He rumbled in a low voice, “Do I come in with you or wait out here?”

She involuntarily pictured the surely horrified look on his face when she went up in the stirrups. “You wait here.”

“Okay.” She could tell he was doing his best not to look relieved and allowed herself a moment of anger. Why was he only bringing this up now? It had taken about ninety minutes to drive from home to this place – over an international border, even! So what if it was still the EU and there were no checkpoints? – so he could have asked in the privacy of their SUV rather than whispering to her in a waiting room populated by several glowing women with distended bellies. Shit, was that going to be her in a few months? Obviously not, because she wasn’t pregnant.

She was repeating this fact in her head so diligently that she didn’t realize she was being called back until Steve nudged her with his elbow. “Na…er, Camille? That’s you.”

“Oh. Right.” She stood and nodded to the medical aide calling for Madame Dumont. Maria had provided them both with believable documents, health insurance information. They wouldn’t actually be reimbursed for the costs of the appointment due to nuances of the healthcare system, but they looked legitimate. At least no one had questioned her as she’d checked in and submitted her paperwork.

She glanced over her shoulder as she entered the back section of the office; Steve was watching her with undisguised concern. The aide smiled at her as they walked through sterile looking halls. “Your husband seems very worried.”

“Oh, he’s just…yes.” Natasha missed making a meaningful reply about the nature of their relationship when she looked at the scale with some alarm as the aide weighed her. Although she didn’t mention it, she realized that she was up nearly two kilos. Well, that just meant that Sam’s cooking was a little too delicious. She just had to cut back on her intake, that was all.

After a quick blood draw, the aide led her into an examination room. “If you just undress, put on the gown and use the blanket on your lap, the doctor will be with you in a few minutes.”

When the aide left, Natasha quickly stripped and sat down on the exam table, trying not to let her nerves bleed through. She told herself that she was just here for her annual exam, dreading nothing more daunting than the speculum scraping her cervix.

She felt like she’d been waiting hours, even if it had really just been a few minutes when a middle-aged woman in a white coat entered the room after knocking. “Good morning. I’m Dr. Goossens. Nice to meet you.”

Her French was accented, but Natasha didn’t switch from the preferred language she’d checked on her form to Dutch to say, “You too.” She shook the doctor’s proffered hand more weakly than she normally would have.

“So, how are we feeling today?”

Ugh, the medical ‘we.’ Natasha tightened the plastic-paper blanket over her lap, but decided she was better off cutting to the chase. “Well, I’ve had some nausea and mood swings over the past two weeks or so and I took a pregnancy test that came out positive and I know I can’t be pregnant, so…I think what I really need is just that blood test or something.”

“Then I take it we are looking at an unplanned pregnancy?” The doctor washed and dried her hands. “And what kind of birth control are you using?”

“I’m not.” She felt like she’d written this all down on a form in the waiting room, but she supposed she just had to go through it again. “I had a surgery when I was younger and I can’t get pregnant.”

“What type of surgery?”

“It was…” She realized that she didn’t know exactly what the Red Room had done to her, beyond taking away the ability to have a baby. “I’m not exactly sure.”

“You had a surgery you didn’t understand?”

“It wasn’t exactly voluntary.”

The doctor offered a sympathetic look. “I apologize. You are Uzbek, perhaps?”

“No, Russian. Originally.”

“Ah. I was not aware of other nations with forced sterilization programs, but the statistics can be difficult to analyze on such secretive and sensitive issues.”

“Look, I don’t know about any of that. I just know that I had a surgery when I was sixteen and I’ve never so much as a missed period.” The last detail was a lie. Her period had been irregular since the graduation ceremony, so she was never entirely sure when she’d missed one. She definitely hadn’t had symptoms like this before. “I just want to make sure I’m not actually pregnant and find out what else might be going on.”

“Well, there are several conditions that can mimic a pregnancy. If you would raise your arms, may I?” The doctor indicated her chest and Natasha nodded her consent for the breast exam. The doctor was gentle with her palpation as she asked, “Are you taking any medications?”

“Just the occasional ibuprofen for pain relief. Random headaches or exercise injuries mostly.”

“Okay. Any abdominal pain recently?”

“I had some shooting pains on my right side yesterday, but I think it was because I was vomiting a lot.”

“Has that happened any other time in the past few weeks?”

“No. I’ve just had some nausea and general discomfort in my stomach.”

“Your breasts do seem a bit swollen. Any soreness?”

“A little.”

“Any family history of reproductive issues? Ovarian cysts, cancer?”

“No idea.” When the doctor looked at her with concern, she added, “I’m an orphan. Never knew my parents.”

After a heavy pause, during which Natasha felt she’d definitely revealed too much, the doctor continued, “It is a possibility that a cyst or a tumor could release the chemical that indicates pregnancy, but we shouldn’t jump to conclusions.” She concluded the breast exam, washed her hands and snapped on a pair of gloves as she sat on a stool. “If you’ll put your feet up, we’ll begin the vaginal exam.”

Natasha spent the next few minutes giving uncomfortable monosyllabic replies to questions as the doctor poked and prodded. She hated making small talk from such a vulnerable position. Who could bring themselves to care about the weather with their legs spread? When it was over, she tucked the cover over her legs as she sat up. “Am I pregnant?”

“Difficult to tell. Our in-house lab should have your blood test results in a few hours, but I’d like to do a transvaginal ultrasound in the meantime, just to get an idea of what we may be dealing with.”

“Fine. Whatever you need to do.”

“It will take some time to set up the equipment and it is helpful to have a full bladder during the scan. Your husband is in the waiting room, I believe?”

“Yes, but…Dr. Goossens, can’t you just tell me what you think is happening?”

The doctor leveled a steady look at her. “I don’t make a diagnosis before all the tests have been run, so I honestly can’t answer that until we’ve done the scan. In the meantime, you should have a nice lunch with your husband and drink plenty of water but don’t use the ladies’ room. Come back at 2 for the ultrasound and I promise we will have some answers for you by then.”

Although she didn’t really have the patience for this, Natasha agree to return in two hours. Steve stood expectantly when she walked back into the waiting room, but she just walked past him out onto the street.

He didn’t call out until they were nearly a block from the doctor’s office, “Wait, Nat!”

She spun on her heel and shouted without waiting for him to catch up, “I don’t know yet!” He was suddenly in front of her, having sprinted the last ten steps, and he wrapped his arms around her as she whispered, “I have to come back in a few hours to have an ultrasound. It’s just a scan to tell if…if…”

He didn’t reply for a moment, though he maintained his strong embrace. It was really what she needed in that moment. After they had to move out of the way of other pedestrians for the third time, he finally said, “I love you, Nat. No matter what happens today, I’m here with you and I will be as long as there’s breath in my lungs.”

“Love you too,” she murmured as they began walking again. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“I thought you said it was just a scan?”

“Not the ultrasound, Steve.”

“Oh. Right.” He guided her to a bench in the park across the street before saying, “Look, I know it’s not my business even though I feel like it definitely is, but…whatever you want to do, that’s what we’ll do. And I’m not trying to make it sound like you have to make this decision all by yourself, but it’s not my right to force my opinion on you and you should be able to make your own decision without thinking about me.”

She swallowed down a retort about him being a good Catholic boy. He was telling her he would support her even if she made a decision he didn’t necessarily agree with. “Oh, Steve…”

“For the record, I think you’d be an amazing mother. Not that that should influence your decision.”

“Thank you.” She took a deep breath. “You know what we’re gonna do? We’re going to put off any decisions until we know that they actually need to be made. We’re going to lunch and I’m going to drink a lot of water and we’ll get some answers in two hours.”

“Sounds like a reasonable course of action. I could definitely eat.”

“When are you _not_ hungry?”

Her spirits lifted just slightly as he smiled somewhat shyly back at her. “I saw a café that looked nice when we drove in.”

* * *

Her nerves had returned by the time she was back on the examination table with her feet in the stirrups. Dr. Goossens was operating the probe herself, slowly rotating it to obtain the needed images. The internal pressure was about equal to what she felt during any exam. She was also regretting the fourth glass of water she’d had during her extended lunch with Steve.

After over half an hour of the doctor ‘hmming’ and adjusting the probe, it was finally withdrawn. Natasha opened looked down. “Well?”

“You can sit up.” The doctor waited until she had before saying, “Based on the imaging and the blood levels of hCG, I think we can confirm that you are pregnant.”

Natasha felt her stomach drop through the floor.

Dr. Goossens went on, “However, the embryo has not implanted in your uterus. The scarring from the procedure you mentioned has blocked its passage down the fallopian tube and it has implanted there. This is what we call an ectopic pregnancy.”

She tried not to let herself freeze. This was just like any other interrogation. Determine the relevant information by any means possible. She still didn’t jump off the table and do any threatening, asking only, “What…what does that mean?”

“Although you have conceived, you will not be able to carry the pregnancy to term. Had we not caught it as early as we did, it is possible your fallopian tube could have ruptured, which could have serious complications, including death. The next step is an injection that will slow or stop cellular growth. We will essentially induce a miscarriage. There will be some bleeding and tissue discharge, with some possible cramp-like pain.” Natasha didn’t realize her hand was trembling until the doctor covered it with her own. “I know this is difficult to hear, but it’s really the only option in your case.”

“I…” She hurriedly wiped a tear away. There really wasn’t a decision to make, but she nonetheless resented having it taken away. She was supposed to be in control of her body, her ultimate, original weapon. She didn’t want this, hadn’t wanted this, hadn’t even known she _could_ want this. She didn’t even have the time to think about it.

“I can give you a few moments, if you like,” Dr. Goossens suddenly suggested.

“Yes, I…wait.” She took a deep breath, clutching an idea that was entirely new to her. “If I ever…if, um, my husband and I ever decided that…that we wanted a baby…is there any chance…could I…?”

“I wouldn’t recommend attempting a traditional conception, as you have a fair amount of scarring in both fallopian tubes. Your uterus, however, appears healthy and in vitro fertilization could certainly be an option, though it will be several months before you could make an attempt. In the meantime, if you’d like to have an IUD implanted, you can certainly come back in two weeks to have that done.”

“Okay.”

“I can have one of my assistants bring your husband back if you’d like to speak with him while I prepare the injection.”

“Yes. That would…yes, please.” Natasha knew that the shot likely didn’t require much prep time, but she appreciated the opportunity to tell Steve what was happening.

He swept her into an embrace the moment he was led into the exam room. “Don’t cry, Nat. It’s okay. It’s okay.” She hadn’t even been aware she was crying in earnest. “Just tell me. You can tell me.”

She did. She repeated the doctor’s explanation of what had happened, even including the potential for the future.

He was still holding her, pressing comforting kisses to her cheeks when Dr. Goossens came back in with a syringe. “Are you ready?”

Natasha nodded as Steve took a step back. “I’m ready.”


	22. T-minus 58 Days

Steve nuzzled into Natasha’s neck, kissing along the underside of her jaw as they lay side by side in bed. He was still slightly breathless; she was panting a little too, her ribs expanding against his embrace. They’d just made love for the first time in weeks, following their pregnancy scare that had turned out to be an actual scary pregnancy and an equally scary treatment. He had done his absolute best to be there for her through the necessary miscarriage, but he knew he couldn’t fully understand what she was going through. Maria had been a huge support for her, for them _both_ , while she’d been able to stay and Sam had been his steady self. Still, Steve hadn’t been sure he and Natasha could get back to their normal relationship until now.

He felt a little guilty about how absolutely sated he felt, even if he’d managed to hold out until after she’d cried out her own release. It had been perfect. He realized that the feeling might not be mutual when she sighed as he kissed his way back to her lips. “Steve?”

“Mmm?” he hummed into her ear, ducking into her hair to avoid meeting her eyes. Even after all this time, he still missed the red, no matter how nice her blonde locks smelled, smooth and silky against his face.

She let him burrow for a few moments, even giggling once before she suddenly asked, “Did that feel…different?”

Crap. Shit. _Fuck_. He should never have thought one round of fantastic sex meant everything was better. He tried to play for time to think. “Sh-should it have?”

“Shouldn’t it have?” she countered, pulling back from him slightly.

“I….it was amazing. Like always.” He suddenly looked up, realizing how callous he was being. Her expression was impassive, nothing like her usual post-orgasmic glow. Really, it was more like one of her interrogation masks. Dread settled in his stomach. “Um, Nat…”

She looked at him silently. He realized he was doomed when she slowly blinked.

He suddenly realized that nothing had changed in his body, but she… “Oh, God, did I hurt you?”

“Steve…”

“Because if something feels different or hurt you, please tell me, so we can figure out what we need to do different. Changing positions or avoiding certain angles…” he trailed off, now feeling even worse. He’d failed to consider if she was ready in psychological or emotional terms. He looked away as shame overcame him. “It was too soon. I’m sorry I pressured you. I should have just waited. As long as you need, I should have waited.”  He paused, but didn’t look back at her, not wanting to see the betrayal surely flickering across her face. “Nat, I’m sorry. I was being selfish.”

She sighed again as she gently tilted his face back up. “It’s nothing like that. Besides, what makes you think you could pressure me into something I didn’t really want?” A few rapid blinks cleared her threatening tears before she met his gaze with an almost stunning openness. “It’s just…I thought it might be different between us. After.”

He nodded, even though he didn’t fully understand. He knew she now had some kind of implant to prevent another pregnancy – it had been the reason for her doctor’s visit yesterday – but he wasn’t totally clear on how it worked. The pamphlet he’d looked over in the waiting room while she was having her procedure made him think it was meant to block the entrance so his sperm couldn’t…ah. Maybe this wasn’t as bad as he thought. “You were worried it would feel different with the IED.”

“IUD,” she corrected.

“IUD, right. But it’s just a little plug, right? Like a tiny drain stopper?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

“Oh, well…see, the pamphlet in the waiting room was in Dutch, so I really only had the picture to go by and…”

She cut him off with a gentle kiss. “Don’t repeat that in front of anyone unless you feel like being laughed out of the room. Anyway, that’s not what I…I don’t know. I just thought it might feel different between us now that…please don’t make me spell it out for you.”

“I think you might have to. Making love to you will always feel amazing, no matter what. Tonight was no exception.” He tightened his arms around her, pulling her flush to his chest. “Please, Nat. I want it to feel the same for you.”

“I’m not talking about anything physical, I just… Look, it’s just that every single time we’ve had sex before now, we never had to worry about anything else. It was just you and me, enjoying ourselves and each other. Now…now we know what could happen and…I just thought I might feel different afterwards.”

He swallowed hard. “Do…do you?”

“No! I feel great and the sex was great and I love you and…and…I don’t know!” she trailed off as she buried her face in his neck. It was the first time she’d cried in the past week, since shortly after the miscarriage had ended. He just held her, stroking her hair. She finally murmured something. He wasn’t entirely sure he’d heard he correctly, but his heart was definitely beating faster. She looked up at him a moment later. “I know you’d probably want to get married before we even consider it and that comes with its own slew of legal issues and documentation that we can’t get, and I know it’s so completely unfair for me to want this while we’re international fugitives, but I never knew I _could_ want it and now…”

Steve’s brain took a long moment to catch up to the entirety of what she was saying. He eventually managed to whisper, “A baby.”

“Not now, not yet. But…maybe, someday…if I can…if we…” The hope in her eyes was nothing short of inspirational. “Do you…do you want that?”

He didn’t need even a moment to consider before saying, “Yes. Yes! Oh, Nat…wait!” This wasn’t something he’d consciously planned, but he felt it was the right time. He leapt out of bed and dove for his sock drawer. The small box had been with the crates of his belongings that had gone to the Smithsonian. When handing it back to him during his private pre-tour of the exhibit, one of the curators had proudly told him she’d fought against its inclusion in the exhibit, knowing it wasn’t something he would want on display. Only vaguely aware that he was naked, he knelt at the bedside and opened the box to reveal his mother’s simple gold Claddagh, which had also served as her wedding ring. Although worn around the edges and nicked in places, it still shone brightly. “I know it’s small and not much to look at, but…”

Natasha sat up, one hand moving to cover her mouth. “Steve…”

“I love you, Natasha, and I would be honored if you would be my wife. Will you marry me?”

“Yes!”

He smothered whatever else she said with kisses as he tried to slide the ring onto her left ring finger. Unfortunately, it stuck on her second knuckle. “Shoot.” He tried to push it, but it wasn’t going anywhere. He laughed awkwardly. “Guess I forgot how small my Ma’s hands were.”

Natasha didn’t hesitate to shift it to her pinky, looking down fondly at her hand as she did. “Oh, Steve.”

“I’m getting you a diamond that fits the first chance I get, but for now…”

“It’s perfect.” When she looked up, here eyes were shining again, but this time he didn’t question the reason. “This was your mother’s?”

“Uh, yeah. It’s an Irish thing. My parents couldn’t afford much, but they were traditional. I mean, I know _we’re_ not, but…they were both born in Galway and this was important to them. Well, important to my Ma. Never actually got to meet him.” He wiped away a tear. “Sorry. This is supposed to be a happy moment and I’m all…”

“It’s perfect,” she repeated. “ _You_ are perfect.”

He raised her hand to his lips as he sat on the edge of the bed, though he couldn’t resist slipping the ring off her finger to turn it over before replacing it. When she raised an eyebrow at him, he shrugged. “Point of the heart toward the wrist means married. Point toward the fingers is engaged. Not that anyone but me would probably notice.”

“It kind of makes me wish we didn’t have to wait until we’re legit again to start really thinking about getting married.”

 “I, um, I could talk to Father Raymond at St. Michael’s. It wouldn’t be legal, but…in the eyes of the Church, we would still be married. That’s something.”

“You want to tell the your priest who we are?”

He bit the inside of his lip. At least this confession was going to be intentional and not just a slip of the tongue. “He, um…”

Her face suddenly fell. “You didn’t.”

“I was in the confessional and I was finally asking forgiveness for lying to Tony for so long about Bucky and his parents and…I kept talking and it just came out.”

“Steve, how could you?!” She pulled away as if she’d been physically hit. She was suddenly out of bed, yanking on her robe and grabbing a suitcase from the closet. “I need to see if that property in Toulouse is still available and…”

“It’s not like that! I didn’t tell him about you or Sam or Wanda! Besides, he can’t say anything! It would violate the sanctity of the confessional!”

“What on Earth makes you think…”

“Not everyone is out to get us!” He wrapped his hand around her wrist as she moved to start throwing clothes into the suitcase she’d opened on the bed. Keeping his voice calm, he said, “He’s a good man who respects his vows. He won’t betray me. Us.”

She clenched her jaw, but she relaxed from headlong flight mode to general wary anger. “How long?”

“What?”

“How long ago did you tell him who you really are?”

Steve hung his head. “Six months.”

Rather than bursting into a rage about how he should have told her when it happened or at least as a full disclosure during their last discussion about moving, she nodded. “Okay.”

“O-okay?”

She was already replacing the suitcase in the closet, moving calmly. “I wish you’d told me you’d done it but…look, I like it here as much as you and Sam do and if you had told us that you’d told your priest who you are earlier, I’d have evacuated us immediately. The fact that nothing has happened in the time since you told him, that you haven’t even been worried enough to mention it to me or Sam…Steve, I don’t think I can handle any more stress right now.” She was suddenly pressed against him, her arms tight around his waist. “I don’t want to lose something else.”

He abruptly realized that they needed to do a lot more talking about what had happened in the past weeks and that a snap proposal wasn’t about to fix anything. He took a deep breath and gently guided her to the bench under the window. He took a moment to pull on a t-shirt and pair of pants. When he sat beside her, she was looking out the window. She commented, “Full moon tonight.”

He didn’t look. “Nat, do you want to talk about it?”

“The moon?” She arched an eyebrow and looked at him. “No, I know what you mean.”

“So?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Oh.”

“I probably should, though.” She leaned her head against the windowpane. She was quiet for so long that he thought he should say something, but he managed to hold his tongue. She eventually said, “It’s strange. I was pregnant for less than ten minutes.” Steve remembered Dr. Goossens mentioning that hormonal blood levels meant Natasha was seven to ten weeks along, but didn’t mention it, instead waiting for her to continue, “I mean, I know it…it was longer than that, but there where only ten minutes when I actually _knew_. When I believed it. I still can’t believe Sam figured it out before either of us. How did I not realize it before he did? He didn’t know how I felt, he’s not in my body. Don’t even get me started about…fucking hell.”

Steve ignored his reflex to defend Sam in favor of giving Natasha time to gather her thoughts.

After a moment, she went on, “I had a baby inside me. And I know it wasn’t really a baby at that stage of development, but – holy shit, I was pregnant. I was pregnant and the love of my life was the father. And before I even got a chance to think about it, I had to end it. And I don’t regret saving my own life, but, at the same time, I never thought about having a baby, not even since I’ve been with you, because I knew I never could. Now?”

“Now it’s something we can think about,” he replied, hoping his tone matched her own gravity. “If you want to.”

“That’s the problem. I don’t know what I want! One minute I’ve never wanted anything more and the next I hope it _never_ happens! I never had to think about a pregnancy and if I wanted to have a baby, but now that I know I possibly can, I can’t _stop_ thinking about it!” She grasped one of his hands between both of hers, interlacing their fingers. “Steve, I know you want to be a father. No matter what you say about being happy being with just me, I know you would be an amazing dad.”

“Nat, I…” If he were honest with himself, on some deep level, he did want to be a father to children he had with Natasha. He wanted to comfort a child while it cried or teach him how to throw a baseball or to have a tea party with her. He knew his notions about gendered activities were antiquated, but it didn’t stop him from picturing what he would do with his own kids. He thought about how much fun the Barton kids had playing with their Avengers action figures, a Stark Industries trademark, with a much fought about Hawkeye usually leading the team to victory after victory against hordes of plastic aliens. Steve returned to the thought of himself cradling a newborn. “I’ll do my best for any child we have.”

“I know you will. I just…should we even think about it? I have no idea how much of this is because I know I can rather than actually wanting it.”

“Nat, you…I’ve seen you with Lila and Cooper and Nate. You’re the best Auntie they could hope for. And with our own kids…if we have them…”

“There’s no guarantee I can really be a mom.”

“But you know you’re great with Bartons, right?”

“I can give the kids back to Clint and Laura at the end of the day!”

“But you still know what it takes to take care of a little kid,” he insisted. She was still grasping his hand, so he gave hers a squeeze. “I love you, and I know this is a whole new world, but this isn’t a decision you have to make right now. Don’t make yourself crazy over this.”

The corners of her mouth twitched up slightly. “So, you didn’t already think I’m crazy?”

“In a good way.” He leaned toward her and pressed a soft kiss to her lips. “Feel better?”

“I’ll get there. Right now I think I’m just tired.”

He stood and offered his hand to help her up, even if he knew she didn’t need it. She was lying in his arms not long after, her breathing soft and even as she slept. As Steve dozed off, he couldn’t help picturing Natasha holding a swaddled bundle.


	23. T-minus 43 Days

Sam ducked his head just before the three foot high stone wall he was sheltering behind took a hit that resulted in a spray of dust where he’d been moments ago. “I don’t think they like us.”

“Oh? What gave it away?” Natasha asked sarcastically as she shoved a fresh clip into the M4 carbine she’d taken from one of the dead guards. As she primed the gun, she asked, “Also, how did Mexican drug cartels get US military weaponry? They haven’t started selling these on the open market, have they?”

“Don’t think so.” He peeked over the top of the wall again, only to avoid another burst from the bad guys’ minigun. “I just know _that_ one is definitely not commercially available.” He tapped a few buttons on his gauntlet to have Redwing fire a spread of grenades; in spite of the cover of darkness, Fury had informed them that the presence of thermal sensors would make flight operations too dangerous for Sam himself. Redwing was handling the air cover pretty well.

As the reverberations of the explosions settled into more yelling in frantic Spanish, Natasha was still carefully looking over her new acquisition. “See, this is why I don’t think we’re dealing with rogue Mexican Army elements. The M4 is pretty common worldwide, but I’m almost positive the Mexicans still use the Xiuhcoatl. Not the greatest choice, but it gets the job done.”

“Can you give me your breakdown of the best automatic weapons for the spy on the go later?” The cartel goons had regrouped and concentrated their fire just a few feet from where Sam and Natasha were hiding. “If you haven’t noticed, we’re taking heavy fire, here.”

“You say that like it wasn’t the plan,” she replied, raising the gun over her head to lay down a spray of bullets at the compound’s defenders before they crawled in the opposite direction. They were, in fact, providing a distraction to the over-zealous cartel guards and observing radio silence with Steve, who was currently (and likely violently) sweeping through the tunnels beneath them on his way to the storerooms of black market fentanyl en route to US users. Sam and Natasha’s role in the mission was to keep the majority of guards occupied while Steve took out the tough guys closer to the stash before blowing it up. He was hopefully close to that goal as Sam followed Natasha to a new firing position. Redwing tucked into his wingpack to reload with a soft whirr of gears.

Sam wasn’t entirely clear on why they were blowing up cartel stash houses outside Juarez, but he suspected it had something to do with Fury’s soft spot for Natasha. He’d fed them intel on several potential operations in the past two weeks and the few they accepted were pretty uneventful. Sure, they were being shot at today, but there was none of the risk of failure or international threat that usually accompanied their missions. Not that preventing drugs from getting into the States wasn’t important, just…it didn’t seem like the kind of thing that required the Avengers.

He thought back to a night at home during Natasha’s pregnancy ordeal when Maria had told him that Fury got ‘twitchy’ when Natasha was hurt, like he was trying to take a win or go home playoff game with a middle reliever instead of his ace. (Sam hadn’t really understood that revelation at the time, being more interested in probing the depth of Maria’s baseball knowledge since he’d only ever seen her express interest in the Chicago Bears. Strangely, she’d turned out to be a Blue Jays fan because her uncle had played double-A ball for the club in the ‘80s.) Even if she hadn’t told him the details of Natasha’s situation, Maria had clearly told Fury something about the reason for her extended absence while she’d stayed with them in Châtelet, so it made sense to conclude that their current easy…

Sam covered his head as a bright flash preceded a loud boom. Easy was clearly over. Enemy fire, though now less persistent, was suddenly directed away from them, swinging inward. Natasha peeked over the wall before crying out, “Sam! Full spread!”

He was already sending Redwing in to lay down cover. Steve leapt over the wall a moment before the latest spread of grenades exploded in the faces of his pursuers. “Mission complete?” he inquired, raising his voice slightly to be heard over the shouts of the wounded guards.

“Yeah, let’s book,” Natasha replied, discarding her new M4 in favor of her preferred Glock 17s as they slipped through the darkness of the scrubland, back toward the old pickup they’d hotwired after hiding the quinjet further from the site of action. “No hard goodbye for our friends?”

“Give it a minute.” Steve ducked his head and pulled Natasha into his chest a millisecond before the ground was rocked by the force of the secondary explosion. “I might have overdone it!”

Fortunately, he was yelling, so Sam was able to hear him over the ringing in his ears. “Ya think?” He shook his head to clear the reverb as he tailed Steve and Natasha to their ride. The frantic Spanish shouting fell to the rear with the roar of the flames currently engulfing the drug dealers’ compound. Sam had regained most of his hearing by the time Natasha was speeding them away, although his slow response to her question about seating arrangements had landed him in the bed of the truck. The short drive had nearly ended by the time he remembered he was wearing his wingpack and could have spared himself the bumpy ride.

They left the truck on the outskirts of the property where they’d stolen it and walked back toward the spot the jet was cloaked. The sky above was clear and starrier than Sam had ever seen, outside of his nights spent sleeping outdoors in Afghanistan. He and Riley had spent a lot of time looking at those stars, picking out patterns, naming their own constellations, talking about what they’d do when they got back home. Riley’d had a twin sister he’d hinted Sam might be good enough for. He’d met Theresa – Teri – at the funeral, of course, but he hadn’t said anything beyond some standard platitudes about what a good friend and wingman Riley was. Had been. Sam hadn’t even checked in with the family since then. Had Mom and Dad ever taken that dream vacation to Italy? Had Teri gone to law school? Had baby brother Andrew gotten into Notre Dame to play soccer?

“Sam, you okay?” Natasha was looking over her shoulder at him, concern evident on her obscured face.

He forced himself not to sniffle again. “Fine. Think I might have a cactus allergy or somethin’.”

He didn’t wipe his eyes until she’d turned away. Google would be there when he got home and he could at least do a little check in. Damn. If Riley’s family was watching the news, they’d seen him as a fugitive and…damn. He had fully collected himself (on the outside at least) a few minutes later when they were back at the jet and lifting off. After giving himself time to check over Redwing, he finally settled himself down fully for the trip home. Steve, who was letting Natasha fly in a gesture that was either chivalrous or reckless (woman piloted like she drove), finished up a call with Fury, filling him in on the mission, before turning to Sam. “Everything all right?”

“Yeah. Redwing might need a tune-up, but nothing I can’t handle.” The look Steve was giving him said that wasn’t what was being asked, so he went on, “Hey, you feel like we’re the JV team at the moment?”

“Show me the freshman third baseman who could have pulled that mission off.” Steve chuckled. “I’m guessing you’re disappointed no one tried to punch you? Don’t worry, I’m pretty sure I fulfilled our quota in the tunnels on this one.”

“Any of ‘em land?” Sam asked sarcastically, though he didn’t think he was imagining Natasha leaning back to listen.

“From those guys? Hardly.” Steve brushed imaginary dirt off his shoulder, and Sam regretted teaching him that gesture. “They didn’t stand a chance against us.”

“Uh-huh. And that doesn’t seem weird to you?”

“How so?”

Sam puffed out a breath. “You haven’t noticed that Fury’s been tossing us the easy stuff? I mean, not that it hasn’t been worthwhile, but…not like fentanyl isn’t a huge problem and maybe we should be shutting down supply and…we’re out there doing good, but…”

“Fury’s sending us on milk runs,” Natasha came to his rescue, though it was accompanied by a sharp bank. “He’s making sure I’m okay before he feeds us anything serious. Sorry.”

Steve began, “Nat, don’t…”

“Hey, it’s not like the bad guys _should_ be allowed to ambush UN Peacekeepers or traffic drugs.” The jet suddenly dipped in a stomach-jolting way before stabilizing. “It’s not like any of this is _beneath_ us, right?”

Sam bit his tongue, not wanting to provoke a more dramatic display of Natasha’s opinion. She was completely right that the smaller stuff needed to be stopped just as urgently as the bigger, world-ending stuff; he just wasn’t sure they were the ones who needed to intervene. Fury had resources and connections other than them. Steve apparently disagreed, saying, “You know we can’t fix everything wrong in the world. We’ve got limited resources, so we should be tasked with the most important missions that we’re also capable of handling. Plus, we decided to take this one. That’s been our agreement with Fury from the beginning – we only take on missions we thought were worthwhile.”

“Yeah, and the only suggestions we’ve rejected in the past few weeks were the surveillance of a suspected Chinese gangster in Hong Kong and the possibly poison counterfeit cachaça shipment in Lisbon. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed it, Steve.”

“Well…”

“Stop playing dumb. Sam’s noticed it, too.” She glanced toward him and he took it to indicate she wasn’t calling _him_ dumb. “Besides, you’ve been watching what’s on the wire. That arms dealing cabal in Cameroon that the legal Avengers took down with Wakandan assistance last week? The NATO op in Tripoli? The Argentine Hydra base?”

“She’s got a point,” he agreed.

Steve puffed up with indignation. “Fury values us and he wouldn’t feed us bad intel.”

“We’re not saying it’s bad,” Sam said. “Just that it’s, y’know, not really what we do.”

“Then you’re on her side?”

“Dude, you’re always on her side. And so am I.” He didn’t usually get in between Steve and Natasha’s little spats, but this seemed like an obvious situation where he actually needed to. “Take a second to think about what you’re saying.”

Steve took the advice literally, chin dropping to his chest as he squeezed his eyes shut. Just before Sam was about to make a snarky comment about to Natasha, Steve said, “This was in the Federales jurisdiction. And before that was Interpol, and before that would have been MSS. Why didn’t Fury just read them in?”

“Welcome to the Rogue Avengers,” Natasha quipped, rising from her seat as she engaged the autopilot. “We do what we can when we find out what we can do.”

“Yeah, I don’t love that as our slogan,” Sam said.

“I wasn’t pitching it. Besides, once I talk to Nick and convince him I’m fine, we’ll get back to our usual missions.”

Steve caught her around the waist as she tried to walk past him. “And how do you intend to do that?”

“Well, T’Challa apparently told the other Avengers about the op in Cameroon. No reason he wouldn’t accept our help on something else, as he has on several occasions.” She batted her eyelashes in a way that had Steve blushing. “Once that gets back to Nick, he’ll have to get us back on the real missions if he still wants us working with him.”

Sam shook his head. “Long as we don’t have to see Okoye, I’m all for it.”

“I keep telling you, she’s awesome,” Natasha replied, turning her gaze on him, though it lacked the poutiness of the one she’d used on Steve. “Besides, I don’t think Maria would like it if you let another woman kick your ass.”

“Okay, that was one sparring session! And…” He spent the majority of the flight home arguing his position.

 

 


	24. T-minus 26 Days

Steve woke early – not for him, because he was always up at the crack of dawn – but for Natasha. Except for the rare occasions she was working directly for Fury, Steve hadn’t found himself waking up alone in bed for over a year. Although it wasn’t unusual for her to stay up later than him, it was certainly out of the ordinary for her to be awake before he was. He found he didn’t really like the feeling. At least the bedroom door was open and he could hear something that sounded like a heavy drum beat and…horns?

He dressed in his running clothes before making his way downstairs. Natasha was in the living room with Sam and they were dancing along with what looked like a concert on the television. When she turned and noticed Steve, she practically leapt over the couch to throw her arms around his neck. “Steve! Beyoncé is opening Coachella! We’ve got the livestream!”

“Beyoncé?” He had a moment of confusion as he went through his mental list of world leaders who might be making an important speech at an outdoor event right now, until he remembered, “Oh! She’s a singer. Okay, I remember her singing about how girls run the world the year I came out of the ice.” He paused for a moment, squeezing Natasha’s hips in his hands. “I kind of wish she’d been right.”

“So true.” She pecked his lips before pulling him into a deeper kiss.

It was interrupted only when Sam shouted, “Ohhhh! You seein’ this?”

She turned back to the television and Steve seemed forgotten as he sat on the bench by the door to tie his running shoes. He was stretching on the lawn when Natasha ran out to embrace him again. “Just wanted to tell you to have a good run,” she said between kisses.

He took advantage of her distraction to pull her against him, but before he could suggest an in-bed cardio workout, Sam’s atypically offkey singing voice carried out the open door, “Sorry…I ain’t sorry!”

“See you!” she cried as she ran back into the house. Apparently distraction was moot.

Steve took it as a good sign that she was so excited about this Beyoncé concert. Natasha had been uncharacteristically down since…since…

He attempted to put the child they’d never even thought about out of his head as he took off out of the driveway at a full sprint. He had spent the past weeks trying not to think about the fact that he could have been a father. Against all odds, he had impregnated the love his life (he’d felt so incredible when she’d called him that) and had no idea it was even possible. It wasn’t her fault, of course, but he resented his own ironic impotence via non-impotence in the matter. He absolutely wanted to marry her and make choices about their potential family with her. It wasn’t fair that all of that had been taken from them. He wanted to marry Natasha and have children with her, no matter the circumstances.

No. That was so selfish. So _damn_ selfish. They couldn’t have a baby while they were fugitives, even if they wanted to. A child deserved stability, a home. A child didn’t deserve to have their parents constantly looking over their shoulders, hanging under a requirement to lead separate lives from society like the ones they were currently maintaining. How could they have a kid under their current circumstances? And what if they never got to that point? Or didn’t until it was too late?

He was on his fifth lap of the town when he finally started to feel the burn in his lungs and muscles diverting him from his inner monologue. Still, it wasn’t until his eighth that he felt settled down enough to return home.

He walked into the house and kicked off his shoes with the completely reasonable request, “So, what’s for breakfast?”

Although he was blithely shouted out of the living room for interrupting a Destiny’s Child reunion, he felt like he’d at least made an impression, which was confirmed when Natasha joined him in the shower while complaining about missing the ‘Single Ladies’ performance. He kissed her as he rested his hands on her waist while they stood under the warm spray. “You didn’t have to come up here.”

“But I did. I walked upstairs and took off my clothes and got in the shower so I could be with you.” She stepped closer and pressed against his body. “So tell me why you’re so tense.”

“I just ran, like, twenty…” his explanation dissolved into a moan as she dug her fingers into the muscles of his shoulders. “Nat…”

“Shhh,” she breathed out as she pressed a kiss to his chest, still rubbing his neck and shoulders under the running shower. He’d managed to fix theirs after several false starts, so there was no need to curtail their activities as the relaxation led to arousal further down. She continued kneading his shoulders, her hands sliding down to rub his back as well. “I know you’ve got something on your mind. Do I have to convince you to tell me what it is?”

She wasn’t shy about her chosen method of persuasion, giving him firm stroke that had him seeing stars. Before he could argue for her pleasure, she knelt and her lips closed around the head of his already swollen cock. “Oh, Nat…”

She hummed as she took him deep in her mouth. He groaned with satisfaction. He didn’t deserve this kind of gratification without reciprocation, and that was going to be a challenge in the shower. He angled the showerhead away to get the spray out of her face. This was…oooh!....more than he needed to snap him out of his mini-funk. He’d always liked blow jobs. Blow jobs were great. He pressed his hands against the shower wall, though, as he’d never liked burying his fingers in a woman’s hair; it felt too much like coercion, no matter how willing his partner.

Natasha was nothing if not willing, looking up at him through her lashes with a glint in her eye as she pulled off him in order to run her tongue around the ridge of his glans. “So…” She began to pepper little nipping kisses along his shaft. “Are you gonna tell me?”

Not wanting to kill the mood when he was so turned on, he nodded but stipulated, “After.”

“Sure,” she agreed, immediately taking him back in her mouth. He was always amazed that she could take him so deep without gagging, but he didn’t exactly have any experience in the matter.

He simply watched with shallow breaths as she sucked and stroked him. It was so good. So, _so_ good. He gasped with a sudden clench of her hand at the base of his cock. “Oh, Nat…”

She laughed around him; he didn’t hold back on his resulting moan. He fought against his instinct to pump his hips, continuing to let her set the pace as she worked her lips and tongue. There was only so much he could…so much he…

“Holy…Natasha!”

Her throat kept up the sensation as she swallowed, keeping nearly perfect time with his spurts. It was all he could do to remain standing, his hands planted against the wall.

He let out a strange groan as she pulled back with what he could only assume was a satisfied smirk. The water suddenly turned off and he opened his eyes. “Thank you.”

“You’re thanking me for bribing you with sex?”

“Well, it sounds bad if you put it that way.” He was still smiling as he stepped out of the shower after her. “Although if you’re suggesting sex, I could be ready in a few minutes.”

“Of course you could, super sexer. But first you’re going to talk about your feelings with me.” She rolled her eyes. “Wow. I cannot believe I’ve become the stereotypical girlfriend in a bad romcom. I just want to know what had you so worked up when you got back earlier, but if you don’t walk to talk about it, by all means…”

He gently pushed her hand away when she moved to stroke him back to hardness. “No, I said I’d tell you.” He wrapped his towel firmly around his waist. “I was thinking about us. Our future.” He took a deep breath and avoided her eyes as he continued, “A…a child. I was thinking about us having a family.”

“Steve, we’ve been thinking about that ever since we found out I was pregnant.”

“I know. I know!” He wandered out of the bathroom and sat on the edge of the bed. “For some reason I started thinking today about we can’t have a baby while we’re fugitives and…” he trailed off as he realized what he was saying.

Natasha was concerned enough to sit beside him before swapping the towel wrapped around her midsection for her robe. She grasped his hand between both of hers. “What? Steve, what is it?”

“We’ve always been operating under the assumption that something would happen, something so big that there’s no choice but to call us and bring us back? And what does it say about me if I’m waiting for some huge attack just so I can, I don’t know, be redeemed?”

“That’s not what…”

“But it is! I want to marry you and for us to have a family and the only way that’s going to happen is if there’s a disaster bad enough for us to get officially involved! What kind of man hopes for that kind of…who the hell am I?”

She was suddenly standing in front of him, hands on his cheeks as she leaned into his face. “ _You_ are Steve Rogers. You are the most moral, best man that anyone has ever met and you always, _always_ put everyone else before yourself. And you are absolutely not hoping for the apocalypse.”

He closed his eyes to avoid the clarity in hers that had him believing what she said. “But I am hoping we get to be Avengers or even just not be fugitives soon. I’m worried that’s the same thing.”

“Steve, look at me.” When he pouted and kept his eyes closed, he felt her fingers digging into his cheekbones. “Look at me,” she commanded, the quiet insistence in her voice persuading him that he wasn’t getting out of this. He opened his eyes and found that she had leaned down further, the tips of their noses almost touching. “You are a good man and you would never hurt someone just to get something for yourself. Never doubt that.”

He took a moment to gaze into her eyes, looking for any hint that she was just trying to make him feel better, but he saw nothing but conviction there. He blinked away tears. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me for reminding you who you are.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.” She finally let go of his face and moved to pull on her robe. As she walked back to the bathroom to hang up her towel, she asked, “What was different about today?”

“I don’t know. What do you mean?”

“It’s been weeks since my miscarriage and you’ve been okay. Sad sometimes, but generally okay. Did something happen on your run?”

“I…” He scratched his damp beard as he went over the morning. “I think it was just that when I woke up, you weren’t there and I was worried at first, but I could hear music. Then I went downstairs and you and Sam were dancing around the living room and you were so happy. I was just glad to see you really enjoying something like that. I guess it’s been awhile since…not that I’m blaming you for anything and you’ve been completely entitled to take as much time as you need to…”

She cut him off, “You’re saying that you waited until you were sure I was feeling better until you allowed yourself to grieve?”

“Um…maybe?”

“Ridiculous,” she murmured, tackling him back onto the mattress. “And you were questioning your commitment to putting other people first.”

“You’re not just ‘other people,” he replied, returning her aggressive kisses. But he understood that she’d made her point. No matter how much he wanted to move forward in their relationship, he wasn’t going to hurt anyone else to do it. Feeling much better about his revelation he rolled them so he was on top. He had opened her robe and was making his way down her torso with a smile on his face moments later. Definitely crazy in love.

 


	25. T-minus 15 Days

Natasha frowned at her laptop, currently displaying an email from Wanda. They hadn’t actually seen Wanda in person for months and her messages had become sporadic of late. When Natasha went back over their correspondence, she realized that she should have seen the pattern sooner, but she’d been dealing with her own situation.

She swallowed hard as sadness washed over her. It had been less frequent and lasting for shorter periods, but it still hit her every so often. She took a few moments to work through it. Deep breaths. Remember that IVF was an option. This wasn’t the end. Thinking about the future had started to become the key to cheering herself up as time passed. She was eventually able to turn back to her email.

Wanda’s latest message, which had been sent ten days ago, stated that she was in London and planning on moving north at some point. That was it. No indication of her mood or what she’d been doing or any other details. When she sent messages like this, it usually meant she was rushed. She was either in an internet café with poor privacy or just uninterested in talking. If it was the latter, she was probably going to meet someone, so she had either made some good friends or she was in a relationship. Or maybe she just wasn’t in the mood to type.

There were far too many what-ifs for Natasha’s taste. She activated the secure messaging app connected to her email and waited. And waited. She was on her third cup of tea (following five cups of coffee) and making significant progress on the backlog of Netflix documentaries in her queue – she had promised herself she wasn’t going to watch _Blackfish_ again (she knew that she identified too strongly with Tilikum and wondered if he viewed SeaWorld as his own Red Room) – when a notification popped up that Wanda had finally signed on. She closed the suddenly less interesting window and rapidly typed, _Where are you now?_

A lag between delivery and response proved that Wanda was carefully considering her response. After six minutes, forty-four seconds, it finally came. _Is something wrong?_

_We’re fine._ Natasha sent the conformation off immediately before asking again, _Where are you?_

_I’m still in Britain. I would have messaged you if I’d moved._

She frowned at this. Wanda had mentioned going north, which could mean she was still in England or now in Scotland. It bothered Natasha more than she cared to admit, especially given how she’d advocated for Wanda having freedom. Still, she replied, _Okay. Stay close, check in, don’t take unnecessary risks._

_No problem._

Natasha signed off without waiting for another message. If Wanda wanted to tell them all about Cleopatra’s mummy at the British Museum or a Manchester derby at Old Trafford or a Beatles’ tour in Liverpool, she would have sent a long email, like the three gushing paragraphs about Picasso’s _Guernica_ that she had written after her visit to El Reina in Madrid last year. There was no need to push if she wasn’t willing to share. Nevertheless, Natasha called up a tracking program she’d installed on her laptop, tempted to finally activate it. Although the old school Nokia phones she had given to her teammates were mostly untraceable to anyone else, she had the option to activate a GPS beacon inside any of them if the need arose. She had mostly intended them as a stopgap if one of them was captured, but they _could_ be used to just determine the phones’ locations. She hadn’t used the application for any of them yet; it was kind of pointless, considering she was usually with Steve and Sam, and Wanda had been sending them her locations, but now…

As long as there were no active threats, she would continue to respect Wanda’s privacy and independence, regardless of how much doing so annoyed her personally. Natasha closed the program without activating it. Trust was so overrated, no matter how much Steve valued it. She really needed to stop letting his better instincts overwhelm her own more devious ones. She snapped her laptop shut, knowing that the program would be there if she needed it.

Walking into the kitchen, she was surprised to see that Sam wasn’t currently whipping up one of his usual masterpieces for lunch. Curious, she walked out the back door. No Sam and Steve shooting hoops or just sitting outside. She could have sworn she’d heard them go out there while she’d been on her computer vigil in the quiet front room. The barn door was cracked open, so it stood to reason they were doing some regular maintenance on the quinjet. She could lend a hand there.

Slipping into the barn, she stopped to allow her eyes to adjust from the bright sunlight outside to the relative darkness of their makeshift hangar. She heard the guys before she saw them, working inside the jet. Steve was saying, “…and I just want it to be special because I kinda did it on the spur of the moment and I was naked and it was _not_ romantic…”

“Yeah, I can see how she’d be sick of seeing you naked by now,” Sam interrupted with a chuckle.

“I’m serious! I need to do this right.”

“Dude, relax. I got your back. How’s this sound – weather’s been nice at night, so why don’t I cater a romantic dinner for the two of you in the backyard? Linen, china, candles, fairy lights, the whole nine yards.” Although Natasha understood what they were discussing and knew she should probably step away to allow Steve to prepare what was left of the surprise, she felt like she’d already put off enough of her curiosity for the day.

Sam was going on about details with occasional excited input from Steve when he finally came to the question, “I know you’re impatient, so is there any way you can get her out of the house this afternoon so I can shop for ingredients and set everything up and, y’know, work my magic?”

She took that as her cue to silently duck out of the barn. She stood outside for a few minutes, setting her features in the expression of a woman who hadn’t just overheard fiancé and his best friend talking about a re-proposal. It was endearing, optimistic and so very _Steve_. He would want to have a story to tell all their friends and, someday, the kids. She was really starting to like how the idea of their potential future family kept shifting from possibly to likely in her mind. When she thought sufficient time had passed, she opened the barn door with more noise than necessary. “Hey? Are you guys in here? Because it’s past lunchtime and no one’s making me a sandwich!”

“I ain’t your personal panini press, woman!” Sam replied, stepping down the ramp of the jet with a grin. “In fact, with that attitude, maybe I don’t even wanna make you lunch.” His face suddenly lit up and he turned to call back over his shoulder. “Hey, Cap! Take your girl out to lunch so she can try to find something as good as I’d make.”

Steve walked up to her with a smile, slipping an arm around her waist. “I would like to take you on a nice date. We haven’t been out together in a while.”

Well, that had been easier than she’d expected. Just for show, she protested, “No, you don’t have to do that just because I insulted Sam.” Putting on her best contrite expression, she pulled away from him and walked over to Sam. She even pulled him into a hug, which he returned with his arms carefully placed above her waist. Knowing he was trying to demonstrate his lack of attraction – either to Steve or to her, knowing she regularly chatted with Maria – she added a simpering, “I know there are no restaurants in town that make anything as good as you do.”

When he let her go after a three-count, he stated, “Damn right you can’t. You’d have to go into Brussels to even get close.” After a pause he went on, “And maybe not even then. Might have to go to Antwerp.”

She rolled her eyes because she’d find that suggestion suspicious even if she hadn’t been eavesdropping, but she continued to play along, “Let’s not go crazy. Next you’re going to be telling us to drive to Paris and spend the night, or the week! Are you trying to get rid of us because Maria’s secretly coming over?”

“I _wish_ she was,” Sam murmured.

“Do you want to spend some time in Paris?” Steve asked earnestly. “We could plan that, if you want.”

Before either man could dig the hole further, Natasha pivoted, “Oh, speaking of people we know who could potentially drop in, Wanda says hello. She’s still in England and she’s enjoying herself.”

“Good!” Steve exclaimed, pulling her back against his side. “ I was starting to think we hadn’t heard from her for a while.”

“She’s just having so much fun that she sometimes forgets to check in every week, but she’s fine.” She was somewhat bothered by how easily the lie came. She snuggled against Steve, wrapping her arms around his waist to make herself feel better. “So, what were you thinking for lunch?”

She knew that she had won the day when he didn’t even suggest they take the Vespa into Brussels to a café that Sam had learned about from their local crémier, instead taking the keys for the SUV off the rack as they made their way outside after a quick wardrobe change. She had taken Steve’s advice to ‘dress nice’ and turned it into a skirt and billowy tank combo that, while fairly conservative, still had him sneaking glances at her during the hour-long drive into the city. She couldn’t fault him, as she wasn’t shy about admiring the blue polo shirt that brought out his eyes, paired with neat khaki pants. He switched to outright staring when they parked and took the short walk to the restaurant. She never minded when Steve did it, but the leering male maître d’ was another story. Fortunately, he was quickly replaced by a friendly waitress when they were seated at their table for lunch.

After a pleasant meal, they walked around the neighborhood for a while, enjoying the warm spring weather and looking into a few different shops. Natasha picked up a Belgium shirt in anticipation of the upcoming World Cup, while Steve received an unpleasant shock when he learned the US hadn’t qualified, not that he was a football fan even after almost two years living in Europe. Still, she convinced him that a Belgium shirt was a good investment and picked out a Lukaku to complement her own Hazard. They’d even picked up a Batshuayi for Sam; Natasha liked the idea of characterizing the whole rogue Avengers team as attacking forwards.

It was late afternoon by the time they were driving back, the back full of purchases they couldn’t get closer to home. In addition to the Belgium shirts, Steve had picked out a few interesting-sounding jams and spreads for Sam to try out while Natasha had taken the opportunity to update her wardrobe for summer. There were just too many options for cute sandals on the market.

In spite of their relaxing day, Steve started to tense up as they drove through town, his knuckles white as he gripped the wheel. Although she knew why he was nervous, Natasha did her best to act oblivious. “Is everything okay?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Good.”

“So why are you trying to yank off the steering wheel?”

“I’m not...” He let go of it completely for a moment before seeming to remember he had to keep at least one hand in control. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. You just seem a little…nervous.”

“No! There’s no reason for…” he trailed off as he turned into their driveway. Natasha let out a little gasp in spite of herself. Sam had really gone all-out, stringing fairly lights along the path to the door and all over the porch, which was also decorated with flowers and crepe streamers.

Sam himself bustled up to the SUV, opening her door and extending a hand to help her out. He was dressed in a pressed white shirt, black pants and a black tie tucked into his long black apron. “Bienvenue à Chez Wilson, Mademoiselle et Monsieur.”

She leaned forward to press a kiss to his cheek as Steve circled around the car to offer his arm to her. “Sam, I can’t believe you did all this!”

“Wait until you have dinner. But for now…walk this way.” He led them through the house and into the backyard, which had been transformed into a private dining room, complete with lights and candles, silver and crystal, linen and china. Natasha took the seat that Sam pulled out for her, unable to stop smiling. He quickly popped the cork off a champagne bottle and filled two delicate flutes before disappearing into the house.

She turned her smile to Steve. “So…this is why we had a romantic lunch date? So your best friend could set up an even more romantic dinner date for us?”

He shrugged and gave her that shy grin that melted her every time. “Well…Sam kinda took the idea and ran with it, so he should probably get most of the credit.”

“Oh, I’m already thinking of a place on the Côte d’Azur he can take Maria for a week, but that’s not important right now. I want to know what brought this on. Our anniversary is months away.”

“True, but…” He seemed to have an internal battle for a moment before standing from his seat. “Natasha, I know we already settled this, but I wanted to do it the right way.” He slipped around the table and knelt in front of her, taking a black velvet box from his pocket. How had she not noticed a bulging pocket earlier in the day? Unless Sam had passed him the…

She blinked to refocus her attention on her fiancé, who was kneeling in front her, offering her another ring. “Steve, this…you…”

“Please, just…I want to do this. Natasha, you are the love of my life and I can’t imagine being with anyone else, ever. I love you. Will you marry me?”

Her voice caught in her throat for a moment. Although she’d been expecting this re-proposal, she hadn’t considered how it would make her feel. She leaned forward in her chair to throw her arms around his neck. “Steve, I can’t think of anything I want more.” She pulled his head up so she could kiss him, not pulling back even as he tried to fumble the ring onto her finger.

They eventually parted when Sam arrived on the scene with a nervous laugh and a plate of duck pâté en croute. “Sorry, thought he wasn’t gonna do that until dessert.”

With minimal convincing, Sam joined their table in the backyard for the five course meal he’d cooked, though he still had to disappear every few minutes to ensure the dishes were perfect. Natasha found herself glancing down at the shining diamond ring now on her left hand more often than she’d planned as they went through a salad, soup and steak. She wondered if they really could get married while still on the run. For the moment, she just had to smile as Sam brought out an espresso crème brûlée for dessert.

Life was pretty damn good.

 


	26. T-minus 6 Days

Sam didn’t necessarily mind all of the prep work that went into a quality meal. If you wanted to serve the best, you had to select, prepare and cook the best ingredients. He didn’t mind making daily trips to the best local butcher, greengrocer, vineyard and dairy available, then putting in the time to slice, mince and chop the ingredients into the necessary textures. People tended to underappreciate mouthfeel when eating, but Sam knew it was one of the most important considerations when preparing a meal. He was nothing if not conscientious in preparing all of his critical operational details, whether in the field or in the kitchen.

With this in mind, he tasted his new marinade, analyzing the balance of sweetness and spice against the slide over his palate. He swirled the concoction around his mouth, ensuring it hit every part of his tongue. He was having trouble deciding how to improve it with what he had available when Natasha interrupted his train of thought, “What are you _doing_ over there?”

He glanced over to where she was scaling one of the small fish she’d caught. The tent was going to stink tonight, but staying outside wasn’t really an option in this wind and cold. Sam chose to focus on the fish as food instead. She claimed it was some kind of whitefish called omul, but he had trouble recognizing fish not presented in neat little filets or steaks in an icy glass case. After calmly swallowing the sauce he’d created from packets of salt, pepper, sugar and some kind of brownish-red sauce that may have vaguely resembled barbeque in the mind of someone who’d only ever seen it on TV, he replied, “I’m trying to come up with something to put on the fish.”

“Seriously? We’re in the middle of the fucking taiga and you’re blending sauces? Which, by the way, looks a lot like you giving oral to your own uvula.”

He didn’t bother asking how she’d come up with that particularly odd description and he didn’t take her attitude personally. She’d been tetchy even with Steve since they’d agreed to take this surveillance mission in Russia at Fury’s request. He had heard rumors about a still-functioning Hydra facility on the eastern shore of Lake Baikal that required investigating. All they’d found when they arrived was a poachers’ camp set up in an old bunker that Natasha had proclaimed a KGB relic, probably some kind of training site. She had cleared the underground tunnels while they had waited topside.

She hadn’t clarified how she knew that it was a KGB site and neither Steve nor Sam had asked.

That should have been the end of it, but evac was proving difficult due to weather conditions. Security concerns had precluded using their own quinjet, so they’d been dropped in via HALO jump six days ago for the estimated three day mission. Supplies were running thin, hence the need to catch and cook a few fish. Steve was presumably still standing on the ice of the mostly-frozen lake, attempting to add to the haul Natasha had brought in. She had offered to kill the nerpa that had made the hole in the ice as well, which had sounded good right up until she’d told them it was a kind of seal. Sam had put his foot down at the revelation, though he hadn’t mentioned it was because he’d slept with a stuffed seal toy through most of his childhood and retained a soft spot for the floppy little guys. At least Steve had been against it, too, (especially after Natasha had tried to reassure them by saying, “I’d just walk up and shoot it, not drag it out of the lake and club it to death!”) though his argument had centered more on the potential waste of killing more than they could eat, regardless of how a passing brown bear would be happy for any leftovers.

Sam was just glad to know they weren’t doing anything to actively attract bears.

A sudden crunching through the snow near their campsite made him wonder if he’d jinxed them, but it turned out to just be Steve (who only sort of resembled a bear with his beard and furry Russian hat) returning with a single small fish still on his line. He displayed it proudly as he crawled into the tent, holding it up like it was a prizewinner. “Got one!”

Natasha rolled her eyes and continued prepping her own catch. Sam offered a bro-pride nod, opting to hold off on any sarcastic congratulations. His restraint barely lasted a few seconds as he said, “Yeah, guess we won’t be starving tonight, thanks to your anchovy.”

“Oh, anchovies. That takes me back. There was this Italian deli in my neighborhood back in the ‘30s and the nonna made this pizza with anchovies, but without the cheese and it was actually…”

“Super stereotypical?” Natasha interrupted, flicking some silver scales at Steve. “Although I guess we could cut you a break since you actually lived through it.”  

“I’m just glad that Nat actually brought back dinner.”

Steve took off his furry hat and tossed it at Sam in retaliation before placing his fish on the tarp spread over the improvised table that Natasha was currently using. “I’ll take care of this one once you’re done.”

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” she replied, tilting her head to accept a kiss on the cheek. She twitched away just after he closed in on her face. “Shit, your nose is cold!”

“All the more reason to warm it up.” Steve nuzzled into her ear, drawing fake shrieks of anger from Natasha.

Sam regretted leaving his noise-cancelling headphones at home as he turned his attention back to his pitiful selection of ingredients. Even if they were eating Russian fish in the middle of nowhere, he wasn’t going to compromise his culinary integrity, no matter how… A blinking light drew his attention away from the little packets lined up on his sleeping bag. “Uh, guys?”

Steve and Natasha had moved on from ‘innocent’ straight into ‘indecent’ (he had slipped his unmittened hands under her jacket) and were no longer paying attention to their surroundings. Sam tapped a few keys on the communications device and a set of coordinates popped up, along with a time. He whooped with joy.

Steve guiltily yanked his hands back as Natasha asked, “You hit on the right blend for your secret sauce?”

“Even better.” Sam was already up and packing. “Extraction in thirty minutes! Bird is inbound!”

“Where’s the rendezvous?”

“Uh, looks like about a mile from here on the shoreline.” He glanced toward Steve, who wasn’t looking very happy about the news. “Somethin’ wrong?”

“Took me forever to catch that fish and now we don’t even get to eat it.”

“Just think how happy it’ll make a bear.” Natasha rolled her eyes and dragged the tarp with all the fishy bits toward the tent flap, saying, “And gimme my ushanka.”

Sam stood to jam Steve’s over-large furry hat over her much smaller head. “Now get that stanky mess outta here.”

“That’s the last time I save you from starvation!”

It was so much easier to laugh about their situation now that evac was imminent. Still, they worked quickly to pack up all their gear so they could hike to the rendezvous point in time. Sam reflected that was not going to miss this particular corner of Russia as they arrived at the given coordinates a few minutes before the jet was due. He was cold but still sweaty after the exertion of the quick march under his layers of thick clothing. He risked taking off his goggles to clean off the condensation.

Natasha suddenly sighed beside him. “Why does it have to be so beautiful?”

Sam looked up as Steve wrapped an arm around her shoulders. The sunset across the lake was creating an orange and purple riot in the clouds over the thick forest, the ice covering the lake’s surface reflecting the colors in a shattered mirror. He breathed out, “Damn.”

“Almost makes this whole trip worth it,” Steve said. Natasha didn’t even disagree.

Even more beautiful, however, was the rush of wind that preceded the quinjet’s invisible landing a hundred feet away from them. It turned off its cloaking only when the ramp began to descend. Beauty reached its maximum level when Sam approached and saw Maria Hill standing at the top of the ramp.

“Girl…” He hurriedly unwrapped the scarf covering his mouth.

She accepted a peck on the lips before wrinkling her nose up. “No more of that until you shower.” Hearing the comment, Natasha pulled Maria into an uncharacteristic hug. The latter struggled to get away. “Oh my God, you smell like you’ve been living in a whale carcass!”

The pilot announced that they’d be taking off and Natasha refused to let go as she laughed maniacally.

* * *

A few hours later, they were in the safe house outside Sapporo where they’d hidden their own quinjet at the beginning of this mission, the location chosen due to its distance from their actual house. Fury’s trustworthy pilot and jet had long since departed. Sam felt like a new man after a long shower, even if his stomach was still grumbling loudly. He pulled on some sweats from his own duffle and made his way to the kitchen.

He wasn’t terribly surprised to find Maria facetiming with Fury about the mission. She said, “I don’t see why we should keep eyes on the site, given what our intel on the ground ascertained.”

“Abandoned for now doesn’t mean abandoned permanently!”

“True, but, based on the video evidence…”

Fury cut her off, “Forgive me if I don’t always believe what’s in front of my eye.”

It would have been funny if not for the fact that Fury was live somewhere, listening for every giggle. Sam managed to conceal his laughter behind a fairly believable sneeze. Maria thankfully backed him up with an emphatic ‘gesundheit.’

Fury immediately stiffened onscreen. “That Wilson?”

“Yeah, Nick. You knew he was here.”

“Being there and being in earshot is different, Hill!”

“You haven’t said anything important in the past five minutes!”

“I don’t give a shit if we’re exchanging the best ways of cooking Kobe beef, you need to maintain compartmentalized security!”

“Considering I only stocked the fridge with Yonezawa beef…”

Sam didn’t bother to argue the best beef in Japan as she slammed the laptop closed without saying goodbye to Fury. “You’re coming home with us so I can make you an amazing dinner with some magic meat I’m smuggling into Belgium, right?” Sam didn’t ask if she was planning to answer her ringing phone as he crowded her into her chair. “Don’t make me beg.”

She grasped his face and pulled him into a kiss that had him seeing stars. His hands slipped down to her waist, guiding her to stand and then maneuvering her over to the low sofa without ending the kiss. She was only too willing to lie back as he settled on top of her. It had only been a few months – a pretty broken up few months, at that – but he was wondering if they were already on the same path as Steve and Natasha.

The thought was enough to make him come up for air. Mistaking his hesitance for distraction as the phone on the table buzzed yet again, Maria tried to pull him back down with the assurance, “Fury won’t stay mad. He needs me too much.”

“I…uh, actually, I don’t know how I feel about that.”

“Well, how do you feel about this?”

He gasped as she grasped the growing bulge at the front of his pants. He was about to violate the one house rule, especially since this wasn’t even their house, when he heard a voice coming down the stairs, “Sam, did you want to eat before we get going or…” Steve’s eyes were as round as his shield when he saw them tangled up on the sofa. “Oh! Sorry. I’ll just…um, I think your phone is ringing? I’ll just…”

He tried to flee back up the stairs, but Natasha was blocking his path. “We don’t have time to…” she trailed off as her eyes found the sofa. A smirk tugged up the corners of her mouth. “Well, since this isn’t really our house, I guess you two can have the downstairs for half an hour. Come along, Steve.” She pinched his t-shirt between her thumb and forefinger to pull him back upstairs with her.

Maria rolled her eyes and called after them, “Sam may not have that stupid serum, but you’re really underestimating him if you’re only thinking we need thirty minutes!”

The only response was a slamming door. Sam hoped she was just being dramatic because his personal best, not including foreplay, was about nine minutes and he’d been pretty young at the time. He supposed if he cut back on all the bells and whistles she usually liked he could condense it down to thirty minutes, but that wasn’t really what he was looking to…

Maria seemed to have other plans, as she yanked his pants down with a growl. “Hurry. It’s hours back to your house and I’m not waiting!”

Yeah, she was definitely the one.


	27. T-minus 1 Day...and counting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the final chapter of this pre-IW story and is a little different, as it takes place as some 'missing' scenes from the actual movie.

As the news and Nick Fury reported on an alien vessel in New York from separate sources in the background, Natasha struggled to tug her catsuit onto her very sweaty body. Sam was outside prepping the jet and Steve was already wearing his suit as he impatiently tried to get in touch with Wanda via their Nokia bricks. How had he managed to get dressed so quickly when he’d been just as _coitus interruptus_ -ed as she had not three minutes before? She huffed with annoyance as her catsuit got stuck at her hips and refused to move. “Son of a…”

“Language,” Steve whispered in her ear as he settled his hands on her waist. She realized he wasn’t just being sweet but helpful as he swept powder up her skin from her hips and over her shoulders and arms. Getting dressed was suddenly a struggle for other reasons. He seemed to be feeling the same as his touch lingered over the cups of her bra. He suddenly took a measured step away and raised the phone to try calling Wanda again. Right. No time for distractions.

As Natasha successfully slipped into the sleeves of her catsuit and zipped it up, Steve mashed his index finger into the phone to hang it up. “Wanda isn’t picking up her phone.”

“Did you try her other number?”

“Sam left a message and some texts, but nothing.”

Natasha grabbed Steve’s Nokia and redialed. There were two rings before the call went to voicemail. Brat. Or maybe that was just how the older cell phones worked. Regardless, there wasn’t really time to lose. “Lock up while I grab my laptop.”

“Um, Nat?”

“I’ve got a program that can track the phones.” She turned back to him ready to justify the need for such a program and realized he was holding out her ballistic vest. “Oh, thanks.”

He turned off the television in their bedroom and picked up the secure phone through which Fury was still ranting, though he stuffed it into his pocket. “Maybe you should just keep it on the jet with the rest of your weapons.”

“Boy scout,” she shot back as they descended the stairs. He knew very well that she didn’t keep _all_ her weapons on the jet, just the ones she regularly used in the field that weren’t also helpful for things like home security. She paused in front of an innocuous framed Van Gogh print that Wanda had brought from Amsterdam to reach into the cabinet it hid to grab some extra magazines for the Glocks holstered on her legs.  Steve peeled away to make sure their security protocols were in place as Natasha snatched her laptop and headed to the jet.

Sam was in the pilot’s seat, completing the pre-flight checks. Fury had apparently transferred his call to one of the screens in the jet and was currently shouting orders at someone offscreen while Maria gave play-by-play on the action in New York, “Stark, the Spider Kid and two men in dresses with some kind of unidentified orange energy weapons are fighting a Hulk-sized warthog and Voldemort with a mullet in Greenwich Village.”

Natasha plopped into the navigator’s chair and opened her laptop, quickly zeroing in on Wanda’s location. “Sam, I’m uploading coordinates, so punch it as soon as Steve…”

“I’m here!” he shouted, hitting the button to raise the ramp behind him.

“And we’re off to…” Sam didn’t take his eyes off the controls as they ascended into a cloudbank, the doors of the barn sliding closed just before it disappeared from view. “Where, exactly, are these coordinates taking us?”

“Edinburgh. Looks like a hotel. ETA?”

“Little less than half an hour.”

“Good.” Natasha closed her laptop and swiveled another screen toward her. “Maria, anything we can do to help in New York?”

“Ask again once you’ve got Wanda. We’re sorting through choppy cell phone video at the moment.” Steve walked over to encourage her into the vest she’d carried aboard but dropped beside her seat. Maria kept up her running commentary, “No news crews on the scene, which may be good or bad, I’ll let you…oh, the donut is doing something…it’s headed up, out of the atmosphere? Hopefully they got their asses kicked and they’re not just leaving with whatever they came for. Stark isn’t talking on any official comm channel, but…something just left Avengers’ HQ in a hurry…”

They were hovering over the coordinates of Wanda’s phone later, between the ground and the donut ship, though there was no indication that it was the same ship from New York. Stark still MIA. A yellow beam suddenly shot through the sky, followed by red and blue bursts. Natasha called out, “Sam?”

“Landing in the park by the Scott Monument!”

“We’ll be in touch, Maria.” Natasha zipped up her vest and strapped on her electric batons and followed Steve and Sam out of the jet.

* * *

After learning that Wanda had been hiding away in order to conceal her time with Vision, Steve felt bad about the way Natasha had admonished the girl right after they’d rescued her. Natasha was stubbornly sitting in her seat behind Sam, staring at her monitors, so Steve took the initiative to walk over to Wanda and Vision. He waved vaguely at the chair across the aisle from them. “May I?”

Wanda nodded and immediately launched into an apology, “Steve, if I…if we’d known that this was going to happen, we would never have…”

“Nobody could have anticipated this,” he interrupted. “What we need to know now is why they were after you two.”

“They were after me, Captain,” Vision replied. “Or, rather, they were after this.” He tapped the yellow gem embedded in his forehead. “They were attempting to acquire the mind stone.”

“For what?”

“I do not know. I still cannot fully comprehend its meaning or power.”

Steve nodded. It was enough to know for now that the stone was the enemy objective. He glanced over his shoulder and noted that Natasha was only pretending not to listen. He swallowed hard. “Vision, I know you’re hurt and we’ll do what we can as soon as we get to base, but what about you Wanda?”

“Nothing serious.” She ran a hand through her hair, ignoring a few strands that were caught in the drying blood on her face. “I will be able to fight.”

“I don’t doubt that.” He made sure not to look at Natasha this time as he lowered his voice to say, “I’m sorry that we made it hard for you two. We just wanted all of us to be safe, but if we’d know what was happening…Wanda, I know that Nat and I weren’t exactly subtle, but if we’d known that we were shoving it in your face…”

“You don’t have to apologize, Steve. This is hardly the same. Vision was supposed to be arresting us on sight, so there’s no reason you, any of you, should have trusted him.” She looked pointedly at Natasha, though the latter remained impassive as she scrolled through their flight plan.

Steve bit back an aside about Maria Hill’s loyalties and how they could have made another exception for Vision in exchange for Wanda’s continued presence at home, but there was no time for regrets right now. “Do you know what happened in New York?”

“We saw something on TV, but those _things_ attacked us before…” Wanda buried her face in Vision’s shoulder. “The news said that Tony is missing.”

“Yeah, that’s what we heard, too.”

“Confirmed,” Natasha stated. When heads turned toward her, she shrugged. “Maria was monitoring Pepper’s communications and she was yelling at Stark for being on the spaceship, so…he’s probably aboard, trying to fight whatever was in New York. Or here.”

“So no Iron Man,” Steve breathed out, trying not to think about the flip phone in his pocket – the one that hadn’t rung in spite of the alien attack. The one thing he’d been counting on Tony to reach out over…

It was stupid. Maybe it had happened too quickly. Maybe the phone had been damaged, or not in reach, or…maybe Tony thought he could handle it himself, with his other allies. Rhodey hadn’t been there, though, so the trip to Avengers’ HQ might not be in vain.

He was still brooding when Wanda asked, “Is it safe for us at HQ?”

“Of course,” Steve answered with less confidence than he would have liked. “We’re in stealth mode. We can come and go before anyone knows we’re there.”

“So why haven’t you gone after your shield before now?”

He hadn’t anticipated her question and stood as an involuntary response. “What?”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to hit a nerve.”

“You didn’t.” Lying had become (almost) second nature since going on the run, but hadn’t become any more comfortable for Steve. He wasn’t ready to talk about why he’d given up his shield with anyone, not even Natasha. It probably was at HQ, in storage or on display. When they got there it would be so easy to…

Natasha, ever attuned to him, suddenly interrupted the conversation as she asked, “Sam, ETA?”

“Eighteen minutes.”

“And I haven’t even completed the beverage service.” She shot Steve a wink. “Airlines could make a killing with quinjet tech.”

To his relief, the remainder of the trip was spent discussing the horrors of commercial aviation, mostly from coach. Sam concluded his announcement that they were landing with, “Airline food, am I right?”

* * *

If Natasha felt strange on arriving at Avengers’ HQ again, it was nothing compared to how she felt when Bruce Banner walked in the room. Bruce, who had flown away rather than talk to her. Bruce, who had maintained radio silence for years. Bruce, whose rejection had made her and Steve possible.

No, that wasn’t true. Steve had always been a possibility. Steve had, in fact, been _the_ possibility, the thing that was far too good for her no matter how much she secretly wanted it. Bruce had just been a consolation, someone as damaged as she was. In a world where everybody got what they deserved, she would have slunk away into the shadows with Bruce while Steve found some perfect, wholesome woman he could show off to an adoring world.

She was still a little worried about what the world would say when it found out about her and Steve, not for her sake – she had long since stopped caring what strangers thought about her – but for his. He would listen and defend her and take the criticism personally. He was going to interpret every comment directed at their relationship as an attack intended to offend or hurt or judge them. She was going to have to prepare him for the glare of the spotlight when it was focused on something other than his heroism.

There was no time to consider that now. She ran a hand through her blonde hair as the rest of the team left the room after agreeing to travel to Wakanda, wanting to grab some personal possessions that had been placed in secure storage after their arrest. Although nothing had been said aside from Sam’s snarky comment when they’d first arrived, she grasped the sleeve Bruce’s ratty blazer so they could have a moment alone to clear the air. Before he could say anything, she blurted out, “Steve and I got engaged.”

“Oh. Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” Oh, this was not how she wanted to lead off this conversation. “I just wanted to…” Establish dominance? Set boundaries? Draw lines in the sand? She ended up repeating, “Tell you I’m engaged to Steve.”

“Yeah, I know. You said that. I said I’m happy for you.”

“Sorry. It just seems like it’s important. And you said congratulations. Not that you’re happy..”

“Oh. Right.” An awkward silence reigned while she tried to remember what she’d intended to say, but he started, “Nat, I…”

“Where were you?” Her anger felt misplaced as she demanded Bruce account for his absence. “You just…disappeared! Is it because I forced you to Hulk out when you didn’t want to fight? Was it because of me?”

“No, it was nothing like that. I just needed a little time to try and think about things.”

“Then where were you?”

“Yeah, about that…this is gonna sound crazy, but…”

She maintained a neutral expression, keeping her own feelings inside, as he described being sucked into some kind of wormhole to a trash planet where an unscrupulous entrepreneur took advantage of the fact that he couldn’t de-Hulk and had him fight in gladiatorial combat for two years until Thor happened to be sucked into a similar wormhole and rescued him, after which they destroyed Asgard and were attacked by Thanos and Bruce only made it back to Earth because of some _other_ wormhole and… “Okay.”

He blinked at her. Then blinked again, harder. “Okay?”

“Bruce, you managed to science yourself into the Hulk without even leaving Earth, and we’ve met aliens more than once since then. Why would you even make up such a ridiculous story that also includes Thor if it wasn’t true?”

“Thor’s dead.” For the first time since hearing about Thanos’ plan to assemble all of the infinity stones, Natasha felt uneasiness settle into her gut. Bruce went on, “Thanos came onboard our ship and slaughtered the Asgardian refugees. I think some escaped, but Thor stayed to fight and…Nat, even the Hulk couldn’t touch Thanos. We can plan all we want, but…”

“But nothing. Didn’t Tony invent something tougher than the Hulk?”

Bruce’s eyes widened. “Veronica!”

“Fire it up, Dr. Banner.”

He bustled out of the room, muttering to himself about finding some extra arc reactors to add even more power to the Hulkbuster armor. Steve had to swerve to the side to avoid crashing into him. He was carrying two large cases over his shoulders. He dropped one carelessly on the floor before setting the other carefully on the conference table. “I brought your stuff up, if you wanna go through it. Everything okay?”

“No problem. Bruce is getting the Hulkbuster armor together, in case we have to fight.”

“When do we not have to fight?” He unhooked the clasps on the case and flipped it open. “Figured you might want some of this stuff. Aren’t leather jackets and boots expensive?”

Natasha smiled a very small smile as she picked through the case. Her clothes were neatly folded, shoes paired, her books and photos in a separate box within the case; Maria was just incapable of half-assing anything. “I feel like we don’t have much time here.”

 “I’m just gonna toss my whole case in the cargo hold, and there’s plenty of room for Sam and Wanda’s stuff, so…should I just stow yours too?”

“Sure.” He moved to heft both cases onto his back again. She glanced toward the conference room door; the window through it gave her a view of the wall in Tony’s office. “Steve, are you forgetting something?”

“What?”

“In Tony’s office.” She jutted her chin toward the shield hanging between certificates and honors like a trophy buck. “I can grab it for you if you insist on chivalry.”

He pouted as he lifted his own case onto his shoulder. “I don’t need it.”

“Steve, this isn’t about your principles. It’s an effective weapon and you should bring it.”

“This isn’t about…Nat, what use is my shield going to be against Thanos’ army?”

“Might as well ask what good it was against the Nazis. Hydra. The Chitauri. Ultron.”

“It’s not the same!” he insisted. “Howard made that shield and Tony…I lied to him about Bucky and he…”

“Who cares what Tony said! He’s gone! If you have a chance to bring your shield…”

“The shield is part of my past!” Steve shouted, surprising her into silence. He took a deep breath before picking up the other case. His voice was calmer as he continued, “I’ve moved on. Got a beard and everything now.”

Although she appreciated his beard, it wasn’t exactly bulletproof; there simply wasn’t time to argue when he was being this damn stubborn. She glanced regretfully toward the shield, but follow him back to the jet without retrieving it.

* * *

Steve tested the gauntlets that one of Shuri’s assistants had given him at T’Challa’s command. They weren’t quite shields, but the weight felt good, right. He shadowboxed with himself for a bit, getting used to moving his arms with the additional bulk, determining how much force his hits would now produce. He wouldn’t be throwing them, but shield tosses had always been less effective on open ground with no way to bounce it effectively. Of course, he and Natasha had always managed some effective techniques. His memory suddenly brought up an image of her in Sokovia, smashing it into an Ultron bot’s leg before passing it to him to finish the job. He threw a final roundhouse right that got away from him.

After the battle, he would have to offer to fix that hole in the wall himself, even though T’Challa probably had people for that kind of thing.

“Rarin’ to go, soldier?” Steve looked up from the circle of cracked stone – granite, maybe? – to see Natasha standing in the doorway. She looked like she was compensating for the tension by presenting an overly relaxed façade as she leaned against the jamb. “We’ve got transport out to the landing site, if you’re ready to go.”

“Yeah.” As he took a step toward her, the gravity of their situation abruptly hit him full force. “I…Nat…”

She was suddenly pressed against him, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck. “Don’t you dare.”

“But…”

“No. We know how we feel and anything you say now is going to feel like a goodbye. We’re not doing that because we’re coming out on the other side of this and we’re getting married, damn it.”

“You’re right.” He ducked his head and nuzzled under her collar, nosing the chain where she wore her engagement ring and Claddagh when she had her gloves on. “Not like I have to remind you how much I love you.”

“Exactly. And you know that I love you, so it’s silly to say it now, just in case. Because…I mean, we don’t have to state the obvious. I might as well be telling you that the sky is blue.”

“Right.” He pressed soft kisses up her neck, making his way back to her mouth. “Maybe just a little something, though?”

“Oh, sure. For…luck. Or not even luck but just…have fun out there?”

He laughed in spite of himself, breaking the forced mood. His lips found hers the same way they always did. Their kiss was long, sweet, not a goodbye but a thank you for the time they’d had and a promise that this wasn’t over.

Sam interrupted them not long afterward. “Sorry to interrupt, lovebirds, but we’re heading out.”

As they walked through the palace, Natasha asked, “Did you get in touch with Maria?”

“Nah, these alien creeps are jamming communications. It’s alright. I’ll talk to her later.”

“Sam…” Steve began.

“Nope. Nat and I already had that awkward non-versation. I’m not up to another one. We’ve been good all along. Nothin’ different about today.” As they walked out into the sunlight, he proclaimed, “Goonies never say die!”

Natasha punched his shoulder lightly. “I was expecting a Three Musketeers reference, but that’s pretty good.”

“Yeah, well…can’t leave anyone out, right?” He grinned a final time and nodded to them both before his wings shot out and he took off towards where Rhodey was hovering.

Steve exhaled loudly before clasping Natasha’s hand a final time before they boarded the transports. “See you out there.”

“Yup.” She calmly walked toward her transport. He surveyed the scene in front of him, Wakandan troops in orderly platoons, Sam and Rhodey high above, Bruce putting the final pieces of the Hulkbuster armor, Bucky talking with T’Challa… Natasha was suddenly there again and he barely caught her as she lunged at him, stealing a final kiss before running back toward her transport. Steve said a silent prayer for all of them before heading toward the battlefield.

 

The End.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all who read and special shout-outs to reviewers! I am planning a continuation of this story that takes place after the Snappening, so be on the look out!


End file.
